


Force of Nature: Storm

by Jenna Hilary Sinclair (JennaHilary)



Series: Force of Nature [2]
Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Force of Nature, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:31:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 244,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaHilary/pseuds/Jenna%20Hilary%20Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Storm</i> is the second novel in a trilogy of Brokeback Mountain-inspired novels.  <i>Earthquake</i> is the first novel and is posted both on the Archive of Our Own and on my Live Journal:  jenna_hilary.livejournal.com.  <i>Storm</i> follows directly from the events of <i>Earthquake,</i> with only a few days between them.  Readers should dive into <i>Earthquake</i> first before they pick up <i>Storm.</i> </p><p>I'll be posting the initial chapters of <i>Storm</i> weekly on Wednesdays.  I expect the novel to be complete sometime around Christmas 2013.  </p><p>The year is 1984. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar have moved together to Eagle Nest, New Mexico. Jack has a job at a cattle feedlot, Ennis is foreman at a small horse ranch, and Ennis trains problem horses in the pasture behind their leased house. Here, in the twenty-first year of their tumultuous relationship, Jack and Ennis learn how to live together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ambushed

**Author's Note:**

> Force of Nature is a Brokeback Mountain-inspired trilogy. The three novels are titled:  
> Force of Nature: Earthquake  
> Force of Nature: Storm  
> and  
> Force of Nature: Fire  
> Earthquake is complete and posted. Though I am posting Storm chapter by chapter through 2013, it is not completely written yet; it lacks a final chapter. I expect to write that as I revise and fine tune the entire work. Once Storm is completely written and posted -- hopefully sometime around Christmas 2013 -- I hope to start writing Fire and will post it chapter by chapter later in 2014. The story arc continues across all three novels, but each novel does come to some conclusion.  
> Earthquake is approximately 270,000 words in 16 chapters. Storm will be approximately 200,000 words in 16 or 17 chapters.  
> Rating: There are unabashed and explicit depictions of male/male sex in this novel, so please read with that in mind. Do not read if you are legally unable to do so in your jurisdiction.  
> Credit: You all understand that these aren’t my characters, right? Annie Proulx created them, and all credit goes to her and to the creative team at Focus Features that made Brokeback Mountain come to life on the screen. No copyright infringement is intended from this piece, nor is any money whatsoever being made. I write from the desire to become a better writer, and from love, and from the burning need in my heart to give Jack and Ennis something quite different from what appears in the original short story and the movie: a life together.  
> Feedback: Yes, please, that would be delightful!  
> Editing: Much gratitude to Elke, who is providing insightful content editing that I couldn't do without. At various times over the last several years, Force of Nature was edited by Amy, Beth, Cath, Elke, and Shelley. As time went on, the magnificent Beth became my mainstay editor. I owe all of these wonderful women my love and gratitude.

NOTE: Because the Archive does not give me an option to post a Prologue separately, I am posting both the Prologue and Chapter One together. 

 

PROLOGUE: LOOKOUT POINT TWO: BETTY JO

Tonight, I need a distraction, so I’m going to write about Ennis, the foreman we hired back in April. [That’s not a good enough opening. Try again.]

I never thought I’d get to meet and know a real live homosexual. [That’s good, a snappy opening to grab attention, even though nobody is reading this but me. Besides which, it’s true. Wait a minute -- a real “live” homosexual? How could I meet someone who isn’t really alive? That’s dumb. Change this.]

I never thought the day would come when my fantasies became reality. [Darn it, that doesn’t work either. My fantasies are considerably hotter than even Rocky knows, and they sure don’t include Ennis Del Mar. They won’t become reality unless I magically transport myself to the twenty-second century, where Kirk and Spock live.]

I never thought that while I was writing about a sexual relationship between two fictional male characters that I would find a real homosexual working for us on the ranch. [Much better. But if I don’t stop editing myself, I’ll never get these thoughts down on paper. It’s just a journal, after all. I wonder, though, if I need a comma in that sentence.]

Last March, when Rocky first told me he’d invited some guy he’d met at the stock show to spend the weekend with us, I could have knocked him on the head. If I could have reached up that high. [Hah-hah, get a stepladder. I’ve heard every short joke on the planet.] But when Ennis showed up, he seemed like the answer to our prayers, because he was exactly the sort of person we wanted to hire in order to help us expand the ranch. He knew what he was doing, it looked like he was a hard worker, he was polite, quiet, and most of all he has a hand with the horses. Nobody learns that, I don’t think. It’s a quality of character that you either have or you don’t. Our horses immediately relaxed around Ennis, and they trusted him with no fuss made. It wasn’t hard to make him the offer to come work for us, and I had no second thoughts. 

I’m not quite sure when it was that I found myself…I wouldn’t say fascinated by our new foreman. [Note to self: Stop annoying the boys by deliberately saying “fascinating” in front of them all the time the way Spock does. It is beneath my dignity as a mother to tease them.] I found myself looking at Ennis as if there were a part of him that was just outside my sight. Which is a fancy way of saying he puzzled me. I like meeting new people, and they will often eventually show up in my writing, but here on the ranch I don’t get out to socialize as much as other writers might. So I’m always trying to understand the people I do know. But it was more than that with Ennis. 

It first crossed my mind that he might be gay around June, I think, but I dismissed that right away. [Come on, BJ, you can do better than that.] But I discarded that idea right away. But I threw that idea on the manure pile right away. [Come back to this.] There was something about how tucked in he was, and then the quickness of his smile on the few times he showed it, like a match suddenly being struck in a dark room. [I like that one.] I have no idea why that might have connected with “gay” in my mind, but it did. And though I tried to not think about it, because it seemed such an invasion of his privacy, and Ennis is surely the most private of men, I couldn’t shake that speculation. 

I guess it was how he never said anything about how he lived or what he did off the ranch too. [Half the books say set off “too” with a comma, and the other half say don’t. What’s a woman to do?] The fact that he was hiding a secret screamed out to me, though Rocky thought I was crazy. Rocky said, “He’s just a guy, Betty Jo. Guys don’t need to be hiding a secret to keep quiet.” 

At least, that was Rocky’s tune until the night we [picked him up] [came upon him] saw Ennis on the road bending over a dead deer he’d hit, and afterward Rocky drove him home. When my dear Ichabod Crane of a husband came back, he scratched his head and said, “BJ, I think you’re right. You’ll never guess what I saw out at Ennis’s place.” [Now, this is a fine thing to write! That my husband acknowledges I was right about something for a change. He should definitely do that more often!]

I felt…extremely awkward. I don’t know how I managed to act normally around the poor man over the next little while. I’m sure I came across as a complete idiot. And then when we were asked to give a reference for Ennis for the horse training he was doing on the side, that was even worse. Because now I had an excuse to go to his home and find out what was what. I am truly ashamed of myself. But what else was I supposed to do? Suppose he was…. I am well aware that there are subcultures in the homosexual community, and that what I write of my beloved [C]captain and his Vulcan is not exactly representative of the ways all real gay men live. Suppose I were to find something I could not countenance? There might have been something truly objectionable in that house. 

Beware, Betty Jo Sadler Buckminster, of your curiosity. It has killed more than one cat. 

Of course, what I discovered instead of perversion and decadence was the most delightful man living with Ennis. Jack Twist. I bet Jack’s broken more than one heart, though I couldn’t tell if those are men’s hearts or women’s hearts. What a dreamboat! And well-spoken too. I’m writing him into my next novella; he’ll be the new security chief on the Enterprise. I surely would love to know his story, know their story together. They’ve each been married before, and Ennis has children. How in the world does a man go from being married with children to sharing a house with big blue eyes? [Darn, even if I capitalize that it reads like it’s the house with the blue eyes. When am I going to learn to write precisely?] Sharing a house with a man who has the biggest, bluest eyes? [Although this is literary license. I got a good look at Jack’s eyes while we were checking the horses Ennis had, and his eyes are pretty ordinary, a little like Davey’s. It’s just the impression that Jack gives, I think, that he’s so handsome he should have remarkable eyes. But I digress.]

I’m being flippant here, aren’t I? When it’s not really a flippant sort of situation. Ennis obviously found it so difficult to endure me knowing the truth of his living with another man. The day that Jack called the ranch and I had to pass on his message, it about made me cry to see how hard it was for Ennis to speak openly about it. Although I couldn’t say a word about it, how I wanted to tell him that he’d come to a household where his homosexuality would never be held against him. At least I would like to think my interest in Kirk and Spock together means I have an open heart and an open mind, and that even if I do not completely understand, Ennis is safe with me. And he’s safe with Rocky too. And I think with Matt and Tag. And of course my sweet natural boy Davey, who only sees Ennis as a tall, strong presence who leans down to talk to him, who plays with him, and who gives him rides on horses. Ennis has worked for us for five months now, and I think I have taken the measure of the man. Though I’m sure my mother would have a heart attack to discover these circumstances, and insist that I prevent Davey from being with him, I am not concerned about the safety of our children. [Trying to explain the difference between pederast and homosexual makes my blood boil. People are so ignorant!]

But now I am really in the most difficult position. I like Ennis. I would be pleased to get to know him better. [Okay, okay, so I want to know his story, but that isn’t all of it.] But how can I allow us to become friends, as I think we were cautiously on the way to becoming before the deer jumped into his headlights, when I write what I write? I write explicit sex scenes between two men, for goodness sakes, along with plot-filled stories, and even though Spock is only half-human, I doubt that Ennis will make that distinction. I don’t want to think of our hard-working foreman as a [model source of information,] model for all the things I imagine, and I surely don’t want him to be made uncomfortable. Tag and Matt have been told the truth of what I write years ago, once I judged them old enough, because I cannot abide secrets and I am not ashamed of what I’m doing. I have told them since they were toddlers not to do anything they are ashamed of. If they are, then stop doing it! But they were also sworn to secrecy about my writing because, let’s face it, society isn’t ready for this yet, not in 1984. Heck, Rocky had a hard enough time accepting it, and he’s one fantastic husband, way above the norm in just about every way I can think of. 

So. That’s where I stand with things now. I darn near had an embolism [look this word up in the dictionary to make sure I’m using it properly] when Ennis called and said he wasn’t coming in that Monday. I thought for sure he was leaving us, and not only would that not be good for our Cross B ranch, it wouldn’t be good for Ennis either, though he doesn’t realize it. Thank God it was just that he had to go to the funeral. [I feel like such a cad for putting it like that. A funeral is never “just” anything. I’m sure that Jack didn’t think so. I’ve got to watch that in myself, how I go full bore on something and neglect to consider the impact on other people’s feelings. If I were still a practicing Catholic, I’d have to confess that as a sin. I’m glad I’m not.]

Anyway, it looks like I haven’t driven Ennis away, because he came back, thank goodness. He seems a little different, maybe more open? Maybe not. 

Yesterday afternoon when we were out in the stable Rocky told him about the rodeo. Because of our problems with Tag [and that is an entirely different journal entry. I’m writing this one about Ennis because I am determined not to obsess about my oldest son and how he is breaking our hearts, I’m just not.] Anyway, because of our problems with Tag, he’s grounded, possibly for life, and we’re more or less forced to rely on Ennis’s goodwill to help us out, even though it’s on such short notice. 

He seemed to think about it in that way he has -- it’s almost like he withdraws into another place while he mulls things over. And then he came out of his thinking and said yes. I wanted to ask him if maybe Jack would be interested in helping out too, or maybe he’d like to come see the rodeo, but for once I kept my mouth closed and didn’t press it. [I am really awful.]

Time to put Davey to bed, and to make sure Tag is right where he belongs. I’d like to put a bell on that boy. He is…. I wonder if he will ever understand what he’s doing to himself and to us? Maybe when he is grown and has children of his own, but I don’t think boys his age have much perspective on life, which is why they do such seriously stupid things. [I am not going to think of this, I’m not, or I’ll spend the night crying and won’t get any sleep, and then I won’t be good for anybody including myself. Instead I’ll…. I’ll think about Ennis. And Jack. I wonder if Ennis talks more with Jack than he does with us? Or if it’s all about the sex? It might be. I have no idea what their relationship is like. Though knowing Ennis just a bit…. Uncap that volcano and I bet he’s a firecracker in bed.]

Betty Jo, get thee to a nunnery! You are very, very bad indeed. Lord, forgive me, for I am a K/S writer with an active imagination. Please don’t let my interest in my hobby interfere in my relationship with a man who, I think, needs a friend. Amen. 

Now, if I still went to church, maybe that prayer would really mean something. 

END OF PROLOGUE

 

CHAPTER ONE: AMBUSHED, PART ONE

Ennis woke up like he did most every day, when the morning wasn’t light yet but offered only shadows, with the soft sounds of Jack breathing next to him. He slipped out of bed carefully, cause Jack would complain if he woke him by jouncing the mattress or making too much noise, and then he padded in his bare feet and undershorts into the front room. Somebody -- not him -- had pulled out the chair from the new desk in there and not put it back, and in the dark he walked into it, stubbing his toe something fierce and wringing a quiet curse from him. He hopped the rest of the way to the kitchen, but by the time he limped into the bathroom it wasn’t that bad. 

He yawned while he stood in front of the toilet. With his eyes barely open he went over to the sink and reached for his toothbrush. That was when he saw the envelope sitting propped up against the soap. 

Sometimes he felt sixty, old as the hills with his body aching after a long day. Sometimes he felt twenty, him and Jack starting out new the way they should have when they were that age. But today, Wednesday, September 12, 1984, Ennis was forty years old, and Jack had remembered. Well, it wouldn’t have been like him to forget, and Ennis hadn’t really thought he would. But he’d wondered how it would work out.

This was a birthday card from Jack, unless the horses had broken into the house during the night and left one instead. Jack hadn’t said anything about their birthdays the last two weeks since they’d come home from Childress, and Ennis hadn’t been sure how to approach the subject or what he was supposed to do about Jack’s birthday coming up soon after his. He didn’t know what grown men living together did about such things nor what Jack’s way of marking the day was. Alma hadn’t been inclined to do much of anything for him toward the end, not that he blamed her. During the best times, though, she’d made a real good cake.

He lifted his eyes to the mirror, seeing scruff on his chin with a stray gray whisker or two, hair tangled from sleeping, and his eyes brown and ordinary, sleepy. He leaned in closer. A whole lot had happened since his last birthday, when he’d been living in Riverton on scraps and on the edge of fear that Jack wouldn’t show up for their next fishing trip. He wondered if his eyes or his face were different this birthday compared to the last one, if somehow all the changes he’d made on the inside showed to somebody who might look to see. 

He straightened. What a dumbass way of thinking. 

He sent his sight back down to the pale blue envelope. Seemed like a card were the thing to do for birthdays between the two of them, and that was okay with Ennis, if that’s how Jack wanted it. Though he’d sort of hoped…. But they were two men, after all.

The envelope was sealed. He ripped it open on the short end, something he’d always done, though he didn’t know why. Out came not one but two cards. 

“What?” he murmured. It was just like Jack to make something more complicated than it needed to be. 

He put one down on the sink, balancing it on the edge, and took up the one that had two cartoon chickens on the front. Ennis tilted his head. Maybe ducks? Yeah, ducks. It made him sort of want to smile. One of the yellow birds was looking down at a splash of red on the ground in front of him. Ennis didn’t have his glasses with him, and he didn’t want to go get them. He squinted, held the card farther out, and made out that the one was saying   
_Oops, I dropped it. Why don’t you pick it up?_

When he opened it, the same duck was saying   
_My heart belongs to you anyway. Happy Birthday._

Underneath was scrawled real big   
_Jack_

He laughed fondly, stopped himself, and then laughed again cause he was letting himself feel that and do that these days, wasn’t he? And it was true enough, what this card said, and not all that soppy. Maybe a little. That man. The only other time Jack had sent him a card had been last Valentine’s, when Ennis had felt mighty uncomfortable to be getting such a thing. Even so, he’d kept it in his lonely night table until he moved, and he still had it, tucked in his underwear and sock drawer. Foolish thing to do, but it seemed those Valentine’s words had got him primed. He would have been disappointed not to be on the receiving end of a Jack-card this day. 

He checked the front again and couldn’t tell whether they were men ducks or women ducks. Both ducks looked about the same. He wondered if that’s why Jack had got it. Jack must have looked dumb checking out the cards in the store, but that’s what Ennis would be doing soon, now that he knew the rules they would use for this birthday thing. Nobody had to know who he was buying for. And he was determined to do right by Jack if he could.

He set that card up on the toilet tank and picked up the other one. It was a photo of a blue sky and an ice-capped mountain. It seemed familiar, like maybe he’d seen it on calendars or something. No place that him and Jack had been, but he got the point. The mountains would always be special to them, even though Ennis couldn’t think on them now without a pang. 

Inside Jack had printed on the blank sheet in big letters that Ennis could read pretty easy.   
_HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENNIS.  
YOU AND ME ARE JUST MEANT TO BE._

And under that was writing, not printing, harder to make out, but he managed.   
_I pretty much stole that line from that last card I gave you but it still fits doesn’t it?_

And then under that he’d written   
_Love,  
Jack_

Ennis stared down at the card in his hand for a while. Seeing it written down like that. _Love, Jack._ He touched the two words with his thumbpad, rubbing back and forth. The words made it feel like what they had between them was even more real, announcing it out loud. And at the same time, maybe now it needed to be defended from the open air, that might make it brittle. 

He straightened and put the card next to the other one on the toilet tank. No way anybody else would see them anyway. 

A minute later his mouth was full of toothpaste and his brush was going to work when the bathroom door swung open. Ennis looked in the mirror to see Jack walk in, naked as the first night long ago when they’d taken off all their clothes in front of each other. Jack had a smile he wasn’t making any attempt to hide. Ennis wanted to ask what he was doing up so early, when he was aware that Jack liked grabbing every minute of sleep he could, but he knew why. And he knew he was in for it.

Jack ignored the fact that Ennis was busy getting ready for his day. He came up behind him and slid his arms around Ennis’s waist, putting his mouth next to his ear. 

_“Happy birthday to you,  
Happy birthday to you…. ”_

“Ah, come on,” Ennis tried to say through the Colgate. He wriggled half-heartedly, but he couldn’t escape. Jack would chase him through the house singing at the top of his lungs if he didn’t let him have his way now. Jack had a pretty tuneful voice when he put his mind to it. 

_“…Happy birthday, dear Ennis,  
Happy birthday to you.” _

Then Jack turned him around, not taking no for an answer, and kissed him right through the froth. 

Ennis jerked back. “Jesus, Jack!” he sputtered. “I’m brushing my teeth here.” He waved his toothbrush as if to prove it.

Jack looked like a fool with the foam on his lips, but he grinned like a maniac and pulled Ennis back. “There’s nothing I don’t want to share with you,” he said, “including this. This isn’t much compared to other things we do.” 

Kissing Jack mint-flavored was a new thing that Ennis got used to in no time at all. He didn’t protest when Jack tugged on his arm to get them both moving out into the kitchen, around the corner through the front room, kissing and snorting and laughing through their kisses the whole way, and finally down onto the mattress. There Jack let him know two things: they were going to celebrate Ennis’s birthday the right way, right here, right now with a blow job Ennis wouldn’t forget for a while, and there was going to be a little something more he’d be getting, but not until that night. Ennis wiped what was left of the toothpaste on the edge of the pillowcase, dropped the toothbrush he somehow had carried with him, and decided to let his man have his way. He went back on the pillow and closed his eyes when Jack’s mouth came on him, resting all ten fingers in salt and pepper strands but not without thinking with a smirk that he’d figured Jack couldn’t resist making a production out of this day. Something else that night, huh? Okay with him. He liked those rules. 

*****

_That first week on Brokeback Mountain, when Ennis didn’t know Jack too well and understood even less his thoughts about him, Jack asked him how old he was. Ennis thought about lying, but he told the truth and said nineteen. Jack smiled in that wholehearted way he had, and Ennis made sure he saw it in the flickering firelight. He said, “Me too. I’m almost twenty, though.”_

_Ennis grunted and went back to shoving the night’s dinner in his mouth, green beans that he liked cut the thin way, along with canned ham, real good._

_A lot later, weeks later, later enough so that everything in the whole world had changed, later enough so that it felt like another whole universe to Ennis, for him to be in a tent naked with another naked man beside him, both of them smoking after they’d each got off -- only not just any naked man, it was Jack, and in no world Ennis could imagine would it be anybody else next to him -- Jack asked him, real lazy, “When do you turn twenty?”_

_He wasn’t sure what to say, as if telling might let Jack even closer than he was already, though why he felt that considering some of the stuff they’d been doing, he didn’t know. Even so, he opened up his mouth and let it escape. “September twelfth.”_

_Jack chuckled. “You’re kidding,” he said. “My birthday’s a couple of weeks after yours. Damn, we’re almost twins.”_

_Ennis got up on his elbows and looked pointedly at Jack’s cut dick, soft now and flopped off to the side in an explosion of dark hair. His own hair down there was as blond as what was on his head. “Twins? I don’t think so. I’m older than you. You’re just a baby.” It seemed real important for him to say it, now that he knew he was older._

_“I am not. I’m a grown man.” Jack pulled in smoke and then puffed it out in a long stream, seeming to be watching it as it drifted up to the top of the tent._

_“Nope,” Ennis said. He stubbed out his cigarette on the old slab of wood they kept for an ashtray inside, lay back down, closed his eyes, and let sleep take him over._

_Twenty-one years and some change later, about a week after they’d come back from Childress, Ennis tried to act like he wasn’t up to anything and went into their bedroom. Jack was cleaning up the dishes after dinner and wouldn’t likely come after him, so he picked up Jack’s wallet from where he’d tossed it on the dresser after work. He flipped it open, pulled out the New Mexico driver’s license, and let out a sigh. Okay, there it was. September 25, 1944. All this time, he’d never known the exact date Jack had been born, but now he did. They’d seen light only days apart, at opposite ends of the state, and they weren’t twins, for which Ennis was grateful._

_“Baby,” he said quietly, and then he put the wallet back where it’d been._

*****

Ennis was delayed his birthday night going down to the stable; toward the end of dinner Jenny called. She was upset because the card she said she’d sent hadn’t got there yet, but he thanked her anyway and said it was nice of her to think of him. “I think on you lots, Daddy,” she said. He doubted that, not with her starting up nursing school the week before. After five minutes on the phone she said she had to go, that she had lots of studying to do and she sure wished she’d paid more attention in biology class back in Riverton.

Jack had made T-bone steaks with big baked potatoes, frozen peas, cranberry sauce and crescent rolls for Ennis’s birthday dinner, and for once Ennis didn’t mind that he did the cooking. It was tasty, including the sour cream he heaped on the potato, but when the phone rang the second time it was Junior, and he still wasn’t finished eating. After some conversation with her, Jack came up behind him and steered him until he was back sitting at the table. Then Jack shoved his plate under his nose. That way he could polish off the rest of Jack’s stove-work while he was talking. 

“Thanks for the card and the gift,” he said, and it seemed Junior was real pleased that he liked what she’d sent, a framed photo of the two of them together at her high school graduation. It was propped up on the counter at the moment, but he’d probably put it in the bedroom, or maybe there was a place for it in the front room now. 

After a while talking, watching Jack get the dishes off the table, the refrigerator door was swung open, and out came….

“Sh -- Geez, Jack, why’d you do that? No, Junior, it’s okay, just that…. Jack’s got me a cake. Yeah, it’s chocolate. Sure, I will. What? Oh, I don’t know. Gave me a card this morning. That’s enough. Listen, I gotta go. All right. Thanks, honey. Bye now.” 

If Jack had tried the candle bit, Ennis would have headed out the door, but he wasn’t that dumb. It was okay for each of them to have a big piece without that nonsense going on. Afterward, it was okay too that Jack walked with him down to the stable, something he didn’t do much unless he needed to get something from the shed for one of his fix-up chores. But this time he followed Ennis in to where the pinto was hanging his head over the half-door. There on the floor in the row between the stalls was a box, wrapped up in silver paper with a white bow on it. 

Ennis didn’t know what to say. He’d been wondering on and off all day what Jack meant when he’d said there’d be something else this night for him, whether it meant he wanted to make love again, or if the dinner had been it, or maybe the cake, but here was a gift too. Ennis shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at it, all sorts of feelings running through him -- Jack doing this for him, Alma not wanting to, him never letting Cassie close enough for anything like this, worry about how he could do as good for Jack’s birthday as Jack had done for him -- but mainly scarcely believing that this was for real, his birthday and them living in the same house. “You dumbass,” he growled. That came easy to him. Right then he couldn’t figure out how to say the more important, deeper words.

Jack ignored him. He went over to the pinto, who watched him come close with a spark in his eyes that hadn’t been there at all on the day the horse had come to them. Ennis watched Jack stroke his muzzle, going straight to the sweet spot like somebody had told him about it. 

“Hey, fella,” Jack murmured, and he wasn’t talking to Ennis. “How you doing tonight? Are you being treated okay?”

The horse blew out air through his big nostrils, and as far as Ennis was concerned that had better mean yes. He was trying his best by the pinto, doing everything he could think of to make him healthy and keep him that way. 

“What’s that you say?” Jack asked. “No, I don’t know why he hasn’t picked up his gift yet. Maybe he’s afraid it’s going to bite.” 

“You finished fooling with my horse?” Ennis asked him. 

Jack turned toward him, forcing Ennis’s sight on him like he most always did, hatless, in jeans and an old polo shirt worn soft through a lot of washing, faded leaf-green. “This is the first time we’re together on your birthday,” Jack said, as if that had anything to do with anything. 

“First time we’re together on most other days too.”

Jack reached up to scratch under the pinto’s forelock, and the horse bobbed his head in the way that showed he liked it. “Oh, go on, Del Mar, you love it and I know it.” 

“Shouldn’t have got me anything. You’ve done more than enough. Ain’t we saving up our money?”

“You going to open that box or do I give it to this friendly stud here?”

“That bag of bones, you mean.” 

“I sleep next to a bag of bones every night I can, so I don’t want you to say anything bad about him. You ever going to name this horse?” Jack finally stepped away from the stall. 

“When I figure he’ll be around awhile, yeah, then I will.” Ennis heaved a big sigh. “I guess I won’t get any peace if I don’t see what you wasted your money on.” 

“You’ve got that right.” 

Ennis sat down on a little bench across from the pinto, the only place to sit in the stable, and while Jack stood over him and the horse watched too, he ripped open the paper. He tried not to do it fast, or Jack might think he was eager or something, or had never got a gift before. 

He opened up the lid to a pair of work boots, gleaming brown leather, better than anything he’d ever owned. He lifted one and set it up in the box, running his fingers to the low heel, keeping his head down cause this was one good gift. 

“You think I wasted my money?” came a question from above him.

Ennis swallowed. “No.” 

Then Jack was squatting down in front of him, steadying himself with a hand on Ennis’s knee. “I’ve got to tell you something about these boots,” Jack said, seriously. “You listen.”

“Okay.”

“When I went to San Antonio, I was mad out of my mind.”

He knew that. When Jack’s temper escaped, it wasn’t any small thing. “I know, me -- ”

“I said just listen. Let me talk.” 

He didn’t want to hear Jack talk, not if it was about that time. “Jack, these boots are fine.”

“I’m glad you like them. They’re your size, thirteen, and they should fit. I figured you could use these.”

“They’re awful nice to wear out working.”

“No they aren’t. I want you wearing them. Now listen, I need to tell you this. When I went to San Antonio -- ”

Ennis tried one last time with the blunt truth. “I don’t want to hear about that. There ain’t any need for you to say anything about it.” 

“Yes there is, you stubborn jackass! Let me say it!”

“Jack….” Ennis remembered what he’d told himself when they first moved here, what he’d forgotten over the months and then rediscovered with all the stuff that had happened in Texas: to make this Jack-and-him thing work, he had to find a way of unloosing his tongue, and along with that went listening when the bad stuff came up. Damn hard to do. He let the box rest on his lap and touched his man’s cheek with the side of his thumb. “Hey. Okay, you can say what you want to. It’s just that I was thinking…why spoil this, huh?” He nodded down toward the boots. 

Jack’s eyes on him, the being-annoyed dissolving into something softer, that was as special as the gift. Ennis tucked the sight of it into his memories at the same time that he resigned himself to hearing what Jack wanted to spout out about. It seemed even on this day, he was being pushed to give more than he wanted to, and be okay with it. He was okay, had to be. Was gonna force himself to be even if he wasn’t.

“I won’t spoil anything, I promise. Now….” Jack tightened his hold on Ennis’s knee. “Like I was saying, when I went to San Antonio I was fucking mad at you. I drank like a fish and smoked like a factory, and I sure didn’t pay as much attention to the convention as I should’ve. I was scared, because I didn’t know what was going to happen to you and me. 

“On the second day, I wasn’t close to cooling off yet. But I went to this boot store on the Riverwalk, and I saw these boots.” He looked at where they rested innocently between them. “I wanted to get them for you, but I was stubborn, I guess.”

Ennis couldn’t figure what Jack was getting at, besides reminding them both of that bad time that was behind them. “You didn’t get these there?”

“No, I did.”

“I thought you said you -- ”

“I called the store once we were home, and I ordered them. I had them delivered to the feedlot where you wouldn’t know. But what I’m trying to say here…. Ah, shit.” 

“What?”

“It sounds dumb now. It sounded better when I said it in my head driving home.” 

Jack was rehearsing things in his head to say? That was news to Ennis. He did it too. “Go ahead. I’ve heard plenty of dumb things from you before, so you won’t surprise me.”

Jack made a face at him, but he plowed on. “What I’m trying to say is that even when I was doing my best not to think of you, I couldn’t help it and I did anyway.” 

Ennis waited, but nothing more came. “That’s it?” 

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“You asshole,” he said, relieved that there wasn’t talk of the coach or other stuff that would make him see red. He didn’t want to fight against getting mad when Jack had gone to all this trouble on his birthday. He reached to take Jack’s chin in his hand, coming into kissing range. “You are the dumbest smart man I know,” he said, sending his breath against those blue eyes and that moustache and those long eyelashes that once upon a time had made a real young Ennis think that Jack wasn’t tough. He’d learned differently over the years, for now he knew that Jack was one of the toughest, strongest men there was. “Or maybe,” he went on, “you’re the smartest dumb man I know.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack asked, tilting his head in that way he had, a smile flirting with his lips, and Ennis was glad to see he wasn’t in a downcast mood. “Why’s that?”

_Ah, come on, Twist, you know why. Cause you would talk about the convention even though you know that’s a sore subject with me, and the less said the better. Cause you bought me these boots, fit for a better man than I am. Maybe you think I’m better than I really am, and that troubles me, but I’ll wear them anyway. And finally cause you’ve done a real fine job on this birthday thing, and there ain’t no explaining necessary. But then again, you’re Jack Twist, aren’t you?_

Ennis didn’t say any of that. Instead he looked at Jack freely, the way he wanted to, with some sort of gratitude for the day mixed up with some sort of aggravation that it’d all been kind of pansy-ass, but what the hell, and so he kissed him. 

Jack came out of the kiss laughing. “I bought myself those new black boots that day instead, but I felt real guilty about it.” 

Ennis cracked a smile. “I was wondering where they’d come from. You want to get up now? It looks like you’re getting ready to propose, and I gotta tell you, that won’t do any good cause I’m already taken. I’ve got this blue-eyed man who gets me boots.” 

Jack got up by pushing against Ennis’s knees, and once he was up he put both hands on his back, groaning as he stretched. But then he said, “Why don’t you try them on and see if they fit.”

“I’ll do that later.” Ennis arranged the boots in the box again and stood up with it under his arm. 

“Okay, whatever you want. It’s not every day a man turns forty.” Jack came close and slung an arm around Ennis’s shoulders. “Happy birthday, Ennis.” 

“You make a fuss, Jack Twist.” 

“If I didn’t, you would’ve been disappointed. Don’t try to fool me. Are you going to work with Fancy tonight?” 

Ennis nodded. “Not that I’ve got all that much time left, what with the girls calling and all this foolishness. How about you?”

“I’m still working in Bobby’s room, trying to get those blinds to hang straight for one thing. You want me to take these with me?” He tapped the box with his finger. 

“Nah, I’ll take care of them.”

“Okay. See you later. When you come inside we’ll have a drink.” 

Jack smacked a kiss on the side of his head, behind his ear, and let him go. He tried to walk away but Ennis didn’t let him. Instead Ennis pulled him into a full hug, awkward because of the box, but he managed anyway. 

“Hey,” he said over Jack’s shoulder. “I guess I should tell you what I’m thinking.” He pulled back where Jack could see him, cause that was the point, right? “You did real good today for me, and I’m grateful. Never had such a day like this.” 

A man would be forgiven for thinking that Jack had been handed the key to the best place, on a gold plate, he got such a look on his face. Ennis wondered when he’d stop getting gifts. 

Another one came then, Jack pressing a gentle kiss on his lips that was so sweet…. Ennis closed his eyes. It really did feel like this. He’d never known it could for sure, always feared it, but here it was….

“You’re welcome, Ennis,” Jack said, quiet as a feather dropping from the sky. 

Ennis took it all in, let a couple heartbeats pass and with them felt time slipping away, time that neither one of them wanted to miss, did they? Then he opened his eyes. “Jack?” he said, and he was shamed that his voice wasn’t as strong as it should be. Wasn’t much; maybe Jack couldn’t tell.

Jack tugged on Ennis’s earlobe. “What, birthday-boy?”

“You want to go riding with me? Not today, cause we don’t have the daylight, but Fancy and Trouble both could do with being trail-schooled with another horse. Maybe tomorrow you could take Jigger out and I could take one of them and….” He trailed off, cause there really wasn’t anything more to say. 

“Sure,” Jack said, making it easy on him and pretending this wasn’t Ennis giving in, providing something to Jack that was important to him. He chucked Ennis on the chin. “You’ve got a date.” 

Through the open door Ennis watched his man leave the stable and go up the yard to the house. When he turned to the pinto it seemed the horse’s eyes were on Jack too. 

*****

The St. James Hotel in what passed for downtown Cimarron had been doing a steady business with the lunchtime crowd ever since the restaurant had opened its doors weeks before. This Monday noontime was no exception. When James Perez showed up along with Andy and Jack, the hostess seated him at the same table that Corliss hadn’t wanted to sit at when Jack had been here with him. The view was different this time. There were no dark-skinned laborers stripped to the waist, sweating, but the sidewalk they’d been working on was complete, and the trees set in big tubs gave a fine shade. Jack liked both views, truth be told, but at the moment he was thinking of how it’d been strange, the way James had asked him to lunch, not like the friend he thought the man was becoming but a lot more like a boss. It was more like James insisted he go with no choice, even though he prettied it up with _needing to celebrate_ and _good job._ When James invited Andy to come along, the man seemed a lot more relaxed. Why was that?

“Here you go, gents,” said the waitress as she set down two bottles of beer and a Coke. “Your food’ll be out in a jiffy.” 

Jack went to take his Bud, but Andy stopped him from drinking with a hand on his wrist. “Hold on. James, I think this calls for a toast, don’t you?”

For a second the bunk manager had that look in his eyes that told he couldn’t imagine what Andy meant, but then he caught on and nodded. “Oh, right, of course.” He raised his bottle in front of him, and Andy did the same with his sweating glass. “Why don’t you go ahead, Andy, since it was your idea.” 

Jack sat there trying to act like this was nothing much, when as a matter of fact it meant a lot to him. He wondered if anybody else in the restaurant was noticing. 

“To Jack Twist,” Andy said, “who with the delivery of the Moroney herd today has brought the Tulip Feedlot pens up to ninety percent capacity, give or take a number here or there. Great job, Jack.” 

They both tilted their drinks in Jack’s direction and drank. James kept his beer in the air and said, “I never thought it would get done this fast or that you’d be the one to do it, Jack. You’ve been a surprise, that’s for sure.” 

Jack sent his eyes down to the red plastic tablecloth and tried to keep his smile small. It sure was a far cry from when James was insulting him that time with Corliss, saying he didn’t think Jack could handle things. Guess he’d shown differently, for sure in the sales department. He was beginning to think that what Ennis teased him about was true, and that he really could sell snow to Eskimos. 

He hadn’t even remembered meeting Moroney at the convention and had to fake it when the rancher called the day after Jack got back to work after Childress. He sure hadn’t expected much to come from it, had treated it offhand, and that had turned out to be the best approach with that particular cattleman. It was hard for Jack to explain how it happened, but pretty soon they’d been talking numbers of steers, and then they were talking dates and checking pen availability, and then he was mailing out a contract. A week after that, to his surprise and without him having to do much of anything, they had a deal, and the cattle were on their way. 

Jack abandoned his study of the silverware. He’d remember this moment, the faces looking at him, for a long time: Andy with his smile warm and sincere, James with his beefy jowls and pure white moustache. That both of them were recognizing the work he’d done, well.... A man appreciated that. 

“It wasn’t much,” he said, because it was sort of expected. They didn’t need to know it was true.

James snorted. “That’s right, because the owners don’t give a damn about the bottom line.” 

“They don’t?” Jack asked with a chuckle. 

“Figure of speech,” James said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Besides,” Andy put in, placing his Coke back down precisely on the ring spot, “it’s an excuse to eat out here. You’re picking up the tab, James?” 

“Not me, the lot. Drink up, Jack.”

Later that same afternoon, the whole sky seemed wider than it ever had before, even wider than the broad, open sky of Texas, and sure wider than when it was closed in on him in Wyoming. Jack couldn’t help but flash a quick, self-satisfied smile, that he hoped nobody else saw, as he walked down the dirt road to where the trucks were parked in front of the mill. He didn’t need to let on how he felt; in his experience, that was a ticket to bad things, and there wasn’t any need to rub anybody else’s nose in it. But could things run any better? Work going better than smooth even after Corliss had been such a bastard about him taking the time off, Bobby not raising much of a fuss about him and Ennis, and things at home about as fine as he could imagine. Ennis and him turning a corner somehow, Ennis all over him before he’d left for work today, bouncing the mattress but good.... It was amazing what a regular sex life could do for a man’s spirits, especially if it meant finally having what he wanted instead of what he’d been forced to take for years from Lureen. 

Jack jingled the keys in his hand as he passed the stable and got closer to where the lot-owned vehicles were lined up. He was about to raise a joyous middle finger to Corliss by taking out the Jeep. He’d only done it once or twice before early on, and he hadn’t driven it or any other lot truck since he’d started scratching his head over the mileage. This was a good-bye to those times he’d felt like he didn’t belong, wasn’t contributing, and a final confirmation that the Barton account hadn’t been a fluke. He sure could make something of himself, even if the big boss didn’t want to leave him in charge of the whole lot. 

Jack was glad Corliss had decided to stay at the office over lunch, a rare thing. He’d said that he couldn’t join the others when they went to the St. James, though Jack didn’t recall him even being invited. He didn’t know what the man’s problem was, but as far as Jack was concerned, Corliss could keep his nose to whatever grindstone he was grinding with no objection from anybody. 

Jack slid into the driver’s seat and checked the mirrors. The manual transmission wasn’t any problem to him. He put the truck in gear, gave it gas, and headed out the highway to a ranch outside Raton. It was small, but every fifty head counted, and Jack figured a visit now and then wouldn’t hurt. The way he was feeling, he’d probably get old man Radford to sign on the dotted line as soon as he got there. 

The Jeep didn’t have a radio, so he hummed to himself instead, every now and then breaking into a song. Even glancing at the odometer rolling on and on, and knowing that the mileage on the truck was way over what it should be, which meant Corliss had been out again on one of his mystery missions, even that couldn’t throw a shadow on his mood. 

But a few miles farther on he realized that the smell that had been wrinkling his nose from the beginning wasn’t being washed away by the late summer air coming in through the wide-open windows. That smell was sticking around. It wasn’t left over from the feedlot, which is what he’d been thinking, and it wasn’t coming in from the fields he was passing by. It was in the truck. A man would think he was used to bad smells from all the concentrated cattle shit he was surrounded by each workday, but this was supposed to be his time away from that. He really wasn’t in the mood. Jack drove some more with the music dying before it got past his lips, and finally pulled over to the shoulder of the road, far enough over where he wouldn’t be in any danger of getting sideswiped. 

“Phew!” he said out loud. He stuck his head out the window, took a deep breath, and then ducked back inside. He started hunting for whatever was rotting under his nose. He groped under his own seat and didn’t come up with anything but a couple of cigarette butts. When he stuck his hand under the passenger seat he pulled out something that felt like....

Newspaper. _El Diario._ From Juarez, Mexico.

_It was only the second time he’d fucked the man. Two times in all these years. Already it was 1980, so eleven trips in all. Jack didn’t know how many times he’d got off in those trips, because they always did it more than once. He paid for that, the time it took for them to get it up again, or at least for him to get it up again, and then he always stayed more than a day, coming back for more._

_Only the second time Jack had fucked him. He could tell that the man expected to be hurt, torn up, with Jack lunging into him with no care and all the anger against Ennis that was boiling up in him that must have shown on his face. It didn’t happen that way. He just couldn’t. So, slow and easy, he applied lots of the lube the man had there in the little room they used, up two flights of stairs to an old creaking bed, the sounds of the city coming in through the open window, the old lady keeping watch at the desk down below, because she knew what her rooms were used for, and undoubtedly took a cut._

_Only the second time. The first time he could barely remember, he’d been so drunk. This time, though, it was taking forever for him to get to the peak. It seemed like he held back and held back, doing what he didn’t do with Ennis much -- one of the things that Randall offered without words, with the looks he gave, always tempting him, saying it could be this way -- and now Jack took his pleasure and took it and took it and took it some more, stopped to put more of the lube on, he pulled out and endured the touch of his own hand, then wanted to shove back in, make him cry out, but instead he went back gently, glad that he couldn’t see the man’s face, only the dark expanse of his back, and it was Jack who cried instead._

_It wasn’t the second time he cried. He’d given tears so many times over Ennis Del Mar. Damn him, Ennis Del Mar, bless him, Ennis Del Mar. Ennis. Jack’s whole self wrapped around him tightly. He could scarcely live without him, except this wasn’t really living._

_He shouldn’t have stopped to grease up again; it felt like his tears should be enough. He came crying and cursing and screaming all at the same time, pulled out roughly the way he hadn’t been able to push in roughly, and was reaching for his boots, his shirt barely on, his jeans not even zipped yet, when the man stopped him and pulled him back to the bed. That man did to him what Jack hadn’t found in himself to do. He pulled Jack’s jeans down to his knees, then off, shoved him over onto his stomach, lifted his ass and before Jack could brace himself, he was in, and it hurt enough to make his teeth clench but not as much as this useless, useless, useless driving to Mexico when Randall was right there, wasn’t he, when Ennis was never there, eight hundred endless miles away, useless, useless, useless driving to Wyoming. Ennis would never be there for Jack, so why shouldn’t he take what Randall had to give?_

_His dick stirred even though it’d just coughed up its bitter seed. It wanted to respond but Jack had nothing left to give, so he took it the way Ennis said had to be done, he took this friendly stranger’s dick up his ass, this strange friend’s dick and the pain he was giving that Jack needed right now. He felt it when he tore, knew he was bleeding and it hurt worse, but that didn’t stop him from pushing back, grunting, or from gasping out loud when the fingers digging brutally into his hips turned soft, when for one moment there was gentleness between them, him and this man he didn’t know because his name was a mystery._

_It should’ve been a relief when his insides were flooded and the man collapsed on top of him, driving him down to the lumpy, smelly mattress, but it wasn’t. Jack needed to be played hard, like a drum somebody hated and wanted to toss in the dumpster, he could hear the crashing rhythm inside that didn’t make any sense, that he couldn’t get out of his head because it was his whole goddamned life._

_He let the man lay on him for a long time. They didn’t talk. There wasn’t much in his eyesight except a pile of old newspapers on the floor, El Diario, saying that his nameless Mexican wasn’t just a dick or an ass. He was a person._

Jack’s heart thumped sharply enough that it felt like pain. 

He gripped the stinking, soppy paper, digging his fingers in, and stared straight out the windshield. This wasn’t.... This newspaper here didn’t have anything to do with that last time in Juarez, when he’d decided at last to go with what Randall offered. He’d been driven by his despair, knowing Ennis was never going to change. And that last time had nothing to do with their lives in New Mexico either, because he’d told himself that he wasn’t going to dwell on it, was going to try to push those decaying memories away, to find a way to take those really bad feelings he had -- all centered on Ennis, where all his really good feelings were too -- and make them not matter at all. 

Jack ran his hand all over his face and then regretted it because his fingers smelled like rotten garbage. 

He unrolled the paper, his nose wrinkling as nothing good came to it. Wrapped up inside it was a bunch of flour tortillas, each one stuffed with a slimy mess. He could make out yellow that had to be cheese, some dots of green, and probably those black smears were beans. More than somebody’s lunch or dinner, with so many these were meant to last a man for a while as he made a journey of days or weeks. What were they doing here in this truck that Corliss used?

He sat back and all the stuff spilled across his lap, only El Diario keeping old tortillas -- homemade tortillas for sure -- from spoiling his best black pants. God, he’d been such a fool. From Denver to Santa Fe to El Paso ran interstate 25, practically a straight shot, and over the border was Juarez. He’d gone that way himself that first time with tears and such anger. It couldn’t be more convenient, or obvious.

A gust of wind came in from outside, across his face like a slap, waking him up as if from a long sleep. He couldn’t stand to have this stuff touching him. He grabbed the edges of the paper like they were soaked in acid, brought them up over the food, and with all his strength threw the balled-up mess straight out the passenger side window. 

It didn’t go far, barely far enough to get out of the truck, as the wind worked against his throwing and sent it down into the roots of the prairie grass by the side of the road. The paper might even have come undone and smeared stuff on the door. 

A curse, banging against the steering wheel, and a quick hop out and around to the other side showed that wasn’t the case. Back Jack went, depressed the clutch and away from the place he drove, checking in his rearview mirror as his tires skidded to make sure nobody was close behind him, no cops, nobody interested in the fact that he’d had the truth staring at him for weeks but hadn’t seen it. 

*****

Old man Radford wasn’t in the signing mood after all, and Jack got back to the feedlot with another hour left in the working day. Corliss wasn’t around, which was just as well; Jack didn’t know what he’d say if he saw him. The window by his desk showed a few wisps of clouds above the mountains not that far away, and a smudge of a man down at the farthest reaches of the pens. Straight down the main row where the feedtruck was distributing the late afternoon feed, there was Andy. He could tell by the bright blue sports coat he wore. Without thinking more than a second about it, Jack grabbed his hat back from where he’d put it down and stormed out of the office, headed for his boss. 

His footsteps slowed as he got closer, though. What was he going to say? Andy raised his head before he had the answer to that question. He was holding a clipboard and a pen, making notes on the new mixed breed herd that’d come in that day. “Hey, Jack,” he started to say, but Jack never heard him, as he was drowned out by a long, drawn-out roar coming from a tiger not so far away. The big cats always got noisier later in the day.

Andy stuck a finger in his ear, wriggled it, and said, “I’m never going to get used to that.”

Jack pushed back his hat, trying to calm himself. “Me, neither.” 

“Have you been back to see the animals since we met you there? Heidi keeps whining that she wants to go back.”

“No.”

“I guess that’s not your thing, is it? Or maybe not Ennis’s thing?” 

That got Jack’s attention real fast, but it didn’t seem Andy meant anything by it. It was just something innocent to say. 

Jack lifted his chin toward the cattle. “They’re settling in okay, I hope.” 

The two of them went over to the rail. Most of the animals were bunched up in the far corner, probably due to some sort of primitive cattle-fear running through their tiny brains at this new place they’d been brought to. 

“Sure, as far as I can tell. I think you and James have a lot more experience with cattle moods than I do.” 

“That was a while ago,” Jack said, wishing he had a cigarette. “When I was a kid and worked on my dad’s ranch.”

“But you learned it then just by growing up on a ranch. I never had that. I wish I did.”

Jack leaned his elbows on the rail and wondered about Andy. Even though he was a grown man, his face was smooth, not weathered, almost like a boy who never needed to shave. And the way his wife sent him out of the house, in those clothes.... Seemed he was somebody who should be working in a city office. “How did you get in this business, anyway?”

Andy lifted a shoulder. “I never wanted to do anything else but work with cattle, but my parents insisted I go to A&M. I seemed to have some head for numbers, so.... Here I am. Cattle management.” He gave a laugh that wasn’t sincere in any part. 

The light dawned for Jack. “And you’d rather be one of the cowboys riding, wouldn’t you?” Pedro up on a black horse was working a pen a couple hundred feet away. Behind them Jack could hear the feedtruck coming closer, the distinctive _swish_ as feed was poured into the slots for each pen, and as the gears in the truck changed.

“Don’t tell Corliss,” Andy said.

Though Jack at first thought that was a joke, he realized Andy meant it. “I won’t,” he reassured. “It’s not like the two of us see eye to eye. Say, Andy, I’ve been wondering.” 

“What?”

There were a hundred different ways to approach this, but one thing Jack had learned working the game all those years as an equipment salesman was that money moved everything and money gave power. “Who owns this feedlot?” 

Andy’s eyes darted to the side, throwing him a glance and then looking away. He started walking back up to the office, so Jack followed him. When they passed the feedtruck, nodding to the cowboys driving and distributing, Jack came up next to Andy, matching him step by step. “It’s okay for you to tell me, right?”

“I don’t know. I mean, who cares?”

Jack scratched the side of his face. “I guess I do.”

“It’s a limited partnership.”

“Okay. Who’s in it?”

“It’s not a big group. Just a few people who’ve been in the cattle business for a while, from what I’ve been able to piece together. I know numbers, not names. I do know that Corliss put it together almost four years ago. Then they spent a couple of years getting things organized, leasing the land, buying the equipment. If they’d had you on board back then, they’d have filled the pens a lot quicker, but the ownership group, whoever they are, went slow on that for some reason.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t say who they-- ”

“I’ve heard Corliss talking on the phone a few times. There’s a lawyer from Abilene, that much I’m sure of. There might be a banker, but I don’t know where he’s from. I think there’s a retired rancher from Colorado.”

Jack thought about it. He guessed there weren’t any surprises there. 

“And of course Corliss himself,” Andy said.

That made Jack take note. “He’s got a stake too?”

Andy nodded. “Five percent. He’s the General Managing Partner. James is part of the group too.”

The guy with seven children? Big, red-faced James Perez who’d never shown any more sign of being able to make an investment in a start-up operation like Tulip Feedlot than Jack himself could? The James who had invited him to that gun show to give proof of what a sharp shot he was, and who had acted pretty strange over the whole lunch thing today? That James? 

“That.... That doesn’t make sense,” Jack finally said as they climbed the mound that circled around the front end of the pens. 

“I know. Sometimes I think -- ”

But Andy didn’t get the chance to say what he thought, because as they got up to the road fronting the feedlot operation, there at the end were the two they’d been talking of, having a tight conversation of their own. They seemed to be arguing about something, James with his hands wide and Corliss with a frown that could be seen a ways off. 

In an uncomfortable silence, as if all four of them were aware there’d been talk nobody wanted to share, everybody nodded to everybody else as they passed. Once Jack was back in the office Marge was there, and Jack didn’t ask Andy anything more. 

He settled back behind his desk for the last half hour of the day and pulled out the Radford file, meaning to write some notes on the visit he’d made to the ranch. He scratched a few words on the log sheet but before he could get any more down Corliss came inside, striding into his office, and then sticking his head out the door and saying, “Jack? Come here, I need to talk to you.” 

*****

This was the third night that he’d gone out on the trail after supper with Ennis, and it was better than good. Jack liked the riding, the exercise, and the memories of the times they had shared on horseback up in the mountains, but best of all was being let into Ennis’s life like this. Jack felt like he’d been hollering for a while and Ennis had finally taken his hands away from his ears to hear him. Jack lifted his face to the mountain; he sent a wish that the new hearing would be permanent, and then he filled his eyes with the sight of his Wyoming man, leading the way on his horse. 

He still hadn’t decided whether to tell Ennis his suspicions about what was going on at the feedlot. He’d worried over that question all the way home, all through dinner, and now the last hour up on horseback on the trail. He wanted to; it would help him to talk this through, and who else could he trust to listen to him seriously? But for years Ennis had been God’s champion worrier on this Earth. There was no contest for first place as far as Jack was concerned, and only now was he easing up, ready to accept things as they were. The last thing Jack wanted to do was upset the balance that had sprung up between them. It was working so well he was about delirious about it. 

Damn. He really needed to talk, but should he? Ennis had been so good about Lureen and all that had happened around her, so maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal. 

Jack urged his horse over a fall of rock that crossed the trail. Each time they’d gone out, Jack had ridden Jigger. The horse was okay but a little quiet for him. He liked a well-mannered mount, but he preferred one with some fire underneath. Jigger was placid all the way through, with nothing interesting going on. 

Ennis was up on Dawn this evening, the ten-year-old chestnut gelding he’d got from the old lady; the other two times they’d gone riding he’d tried out Fancy and Trouble. It was an eye-opener to Jack how different Ennis appeared on the different horses. With Trouble he was always riding with his back straight, head up, ready for problems even when they weren’t there, always on the alert. With Fancy he could tell there was a contest going on between horse and rider. It seemed Ennis didn’t like that horse, she knew it, and the feeling was mutual. She almost bucked him off twice with Jack watching, but he didn’t say anything, especially when Ennis got her back to seeing his way of things pretty fast. It seemed to him Ennis treated her sort of harsh.

Tonight, with Dawn, there was a third Ennis riding. Dawn hadn’t been much more than a pasture puppy for Mrs. Tucker, some horse she could feed sugar cubes to and pet every now and then. He probably hadn’t been ridden in five or six years. But he didn’t have any devil in him. It was just that this world was new to him, even at his age. Mainly it seemed he was surprised to be asked to work for his grain, that it was necessary to carry a human on his back and do something more than swish his tail out in a field. 

But Ennis and Dawn had an understanding going. Jack listened to him murmuring to the horse; he hadn’t said all that much to the other two, except cursing at Fancy. His voice was soft, coaxing, and Dawn’s ears kept flipping back and forth as he listened. Ennis was sitting relaxed, his hands light on the reins, and Jack noticed that he’d put a soft bit on the horse, nothing like the hard curb he’d had on the palomino. Dawn was coming along fast compared to the horse that Jack had seen when he’d first been trucked in. He was the same kind that Samson and Delilah were, suited for ranch work and worth some real money, maybe even more than those two because he had breeding. But then again there was his age. Jack hadn’t ever worked with a horse this old that knew this little, so who could tell what was going to happen?

Jack dragged his eyes away from his man setting the pace in front of him. They’d gone along the trail toward town and then took a sideshoot that couldn’t seem to decide on a course, winding every which way. The air had been warm when they started out, but now he wished he’d brought a jacket. They’d need to go back soon. 

Ennis pulled up where the trail widened out. Dawn took the chance to drop his head but knew better than to start cropping any of the weeds nearby. Jack came up next to the two of them. Ennis was leaning one arm on the saddle pommel, a sure sign of how comfortable he felt with this horse, and looking up the slope. 

Jack saw that the oaks were showing signs of turning already, patches of reds and oranges merging with the greens, but mostly the pines stood tall, with here and there a splash of pure yellow as a stand of aspens proved that autumn came early to these parts. Where they were, they couldn’t see the sweep of the mountains as they rose above them. It was more something Jack felt than saw, because the summits of these peaks were best viewed from a distance. Close up and a man mainly knew he was climbing, and was likely surprised when the top was reached. Him and Ennis had climbed to the top of a mountain or two in their day, he thought. 

Of a sudden, Jack asked himself how he’d stood it all those years on the flat Texas plains, in that baking heat and dried ground, with land stretched endlessly on all sides. All those years were linked in his thoughts with no-Ennis, with wanting-Ennis. Now he had him, and the question was what Jack was going to do with him: share what was on his mind or hold back? 

Jack broke the silence between them. “I like it here.”

“We picked a good place.” Ennis sounded like he meant it.

“It was all accidental, remember? You meeting Rocky that day in Fort Worth.” 

“Yeah.” Dawn shifted weight right and then left. Ennis bobbed in the saddle as he adjusted, but he didn’t make any move to take up more rein. If Fancy had tried that, he would’ve been riding short rein and giving no attention to Jack at all. “Rocky had a word with me today.” 

Jack had been about to open his mouth and spill out his troubles. “He did? What about?”

Ennis abandoned looking up the slope. “There’s a rodeo near Red River this weekend. They’ve got a fair going at the same time. It’s a big community thing for the valley. Rocky says the ranch always helps out in the arena.” 

“You’re kidding.” 

“What?”

“I just found out about it too. I was going to tell you.... You go first. Does Rocky want you to work there?” 

“It seems like.” Ennis swiped his forearm across his face as if wiping sweat away, though Jack knew there wasn’t any there. 

“In the arena?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it? Him and me doing pick-up for the riders when they’re through with their eight seconds, and hazing the horses and the bulls back to the corrals afterward.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t have much choice. The way it was put, it seems this is pretty much part of the job. He says the ranch needs it, since it gives free publicity. This way, folks get to know about the horses we raise.” 

Jack searched for something to say. Though Ennis wasn’t letting on, he knew he had to hate the idea of being on display, when Jack knew well and good he would prefer to keep to the shadows. But since it was job-related.... Ennis was hell-bent on keeping his job, that was for sure. Jack guessed that after all those years of him up and leaving work so they could be together, it was a question of pride now for Ennis to prove that he could stick it through. 

“It won’t be that bad,” he tried.

“Huh. You do it, then.” Ennis pulled down his hat as if the crowd was staring at him right then. 

“Nobody looks at the workers, I know that from when I was rodeoing. Everybody checks out the riders, not the guys working the ring.”

“You think so?” His shy man was peeking out at him from under the brim of his hat.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I was thinking that. If Tag had straightened up his act, I wouldn’t have been asked to do this.”

“How’s that?”

“The last couple years Rocky’s done it with Frank, who still hasn’t come back. Rocky said he was expecting to work it with Tag this year since he was old enough, and not have to bother me, but it seems Tag’s grounded for doing something. I’m it instead, on short notice too.”

“Maybe they’ve got wise to what you know about that boy.” 

“It could be, but he didn’t say. What were you gonna tell me about this?”

“Corliss told me I had to work a booth there along with Andy. I’ll be there all day, and on duty for the feedlot during half of it. I don’t have any idea why he waited this long to let me know.” 

“Huh.” Ennis’s brow furrowed. With a rush of sadness, Jack knew what he was thinking: that the two of them together at the same place was a recipe for big trouble, that they couldn’t do it, that they had to make sure their paths didn’t cross the whole day they were there, that they had to pretend they didn’t know each other....

Jack looked off into the distance. When would they get to the point where this stuff didn’t even need to be discussed? He waited for Ennis to start, but he never did. After a silence that seemed full, Ennis only said, “Think we better get started back.” 

Jack blinked, watched him turn Dawn around and get him started down the trail, and felt ashamed of himself. Ennis hadn’t blown up immediately, like he used to do, any more than he was still living in his rundown shack. This wasn’t 1983, it was 1984: a whole new world. Man and horse were almost out of sight before Jack urged Jigger to try and catch up. 

They didn’t talk all the way down toward their property, Jack gathering up his thoughts in rhythm to the creak of their saddles and figuring that Ennis was doing the same. It wasn’t until they were covering the last couple hundred yards to their back pasture that Ennis sort of stirred, coming back to life, and said, “I guess we’d better get our stories straight for that rodeo. Who’re you, my friend? My cousin? How do we know each other?”

Jack wished they were standing on ground, because he could’ve kissed Ennis right then. “We’re friends,” he instantly decided. “And if we’re asked, give them the truth, that we’ve known each other from Wyoming, from way back. The truth is always best, much as we can tell. But then, nobody needs to know I’m in the stands to see you. Let them think I’m watching like any rodeo fan.” 

Ennis cast him a sideways look, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Can’t stay away from me, is that right?”

“I like good riding, and you do that, friend. So, you aren’t going to pitch a fit if I come see you?”

“If I happen to walk by where you are for the lot, you ain’t gonna blink your baby blues at me and cause a riot, are you?” 

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“Then we got ourselves a deal.”

The horses were ambling along the wire of the pasture fence now, almost up to the small stable that needed a coat of paint, with plenty of bare wood showing through faded red. Not far off to the side, the vulture tree loomed, and even as Jack watched a solitary black bird with huge wings came flapping down, down, to roost on a sturdy branch. 

“I remember.... Do you remember when you said we’d be killed if this thing we’ve got came over us when it shouldn’t?”

Ennis’s jaw worked. “I remember.” 

“We’ve come a long way since then, Ennis. We’re not teenagers. Hell, when you said that, we were, what? We were twenty-three, both of us married.” 

“So?”

“We’ve got better control of ourselves now is what I’m saying. Back then....” Jack shook his head. They were to the stable now, and Jigger went up to where they usually stopped, not needing to be told anything. Jack swung off the saddle. It felt good to be on solid earth again. Ennis came up next to him but made no move off Dawn. He sat there on the horse looking down at Jack. 

“Back then, what?” he asked.

Jack lifted his face to Ennis full on. The setting sun was shining on Ennis from the side, lighting up his cheekbone and one side of his jaw. “You drove me crazy from the beginning. And I know the way we went at each other, the way we...the way we felt, there was no wonder you had your fears. That night in the Siesta, it’s a miracle we didn’t hurt each other bad, the way we were. But....” Jack licked at his lips. “But you’ve got to know that I would never do anything to put you in any danger. Even back then, when I got a hard-on just from you being near, I wouldn’t -- ”

“We ain’t talking about me backing you up against a wall and kissing the breath from you,” Ennis said. “Stupidest thing I ever did in my life.” He gave a wry smile after a second. “Well, second or third stupidest, maybe. We’re older now, yeah, but what we’ve got to do now is...don’t look at me like you do. Don’t...don’t say anything the way you do that shouts stuff to anybody listening. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying.”

“What you think I say that’s shouting things to folks and what I think is shouting are in two different counties.”

“I know. We don’t see the same on that. But for this one day.... This valley is where we live, I hope for a while, and we’ve got to do this carefully, okay?”

“Yeah, I hear you. Do you hear me? What I’m saying? That we can do this with no problem?” 

“I reckon.” 

Ennis swung his leg over Dawn then, kicking his other leg out clear from the stirrup so he could drop down to the ground even-footed. He looked like a sea creature stranded on land for a flash of seconds, a horseman forced to walk, way different from how Jack would ever be. He took Jigger’s reins, led both horses over to the paddock rail, and looped the leather there. Jack followed him, and they each got to work unstrapping the girths so they could remove the saddles. Jigger’s came off easily, and Jack set it on the ground over by the stable wall, pommel-side down. When he got back to the horse, intending to substitute a halter for the bridle, Ennis was still standing by Dawn, the cinch strap hanging loose and low, but the saddle still on.

“Ennis?”

Ennis lifted his chin and squinted into the sun. “How do you feel about this getting older business? We’re both as good as forty.” 

“I....” Ennis must be asking for a reason. He deserved an honest answer, and it seemed to Jack that they were in a place now where they could say these things to each other, stuff they never would have come close to saying before. 

“I hate it,” Jack said, knowing it wasn’t something he let himself dwell on much. “I feel like I wasted half my life waiting for you, and I think I deserve to have those years back. Twenty years from now, we’ll be sixty, old men, who knows how broke down, and not with the time together that we should’ve had. I hate getting older. It reminds me of all that.” 

“Yeah,” Ennis said in a long, low exhale. He hoisted the saddle off Dawn, showing the big sweated spot on his side, dark and moist, and put it down in front of him in the dust. “Fuck better control. It just means we can’t go at it like we used to.”

Jack rested his hand on Jigger’s rump. “You make it sound like we’re old already, and we’re not. What we have now, it’s not so bad.” 

Ennis turned to him then, and the crow’s feet on either side of his eyes were drawn in his skin, because his eyes were smiling. “For forty year olds?”

“For anybody.” 

“I’d call it a hell of a lot better than not-so-bad.”

“Are you fishing for a compliment?” Jack challenged. “You want me to say you’re a fucking machine or something like that?” 

“No, there ain’t any need. I know it.” 

That surprised a laugh out of him, and he figured Ennis had meant that to happen by the shy smile on his lips, there for only a few seconds before he said, “Enough of this fooling around. Let’s take care of these horses now.” 

They did that, exchanging halters for the bridles, clipping on lead reins, brushing the horses down, Ennis bending over and lifting Jigger’s off back leg cause he thought maybe he’d picked up a stone in his shoe. Jigger stood still for it all, and Jack had to admit he was a good horse. He even went to get the comb from inside the stable so he could get out some of the tangles in his mane. Jack did believe a man could be judged by how he treated the animals in his care. 

“You’re getting sweet on that horse,” Ennis told him, and Jigger and Jack each snorted at the same time. 

They let the horses loose into the field as the daylight was dying. Was there a finer sight than the last golden rays of the sun touching the flanks of the horses while they grazed on sweet grass? 

Through the dusk, Ennis went with him back toward the stable where, he said, he needed to give the pinto his night-time ration of sour mash grain and fresh water. Jack wanted to say something snappy about how it wasn’t just him, Ennis was sweet on that two-colored horse, but nothing came to mind. Besides, he had the feeling he’d be treading on uneven ground, given how he’d been dead set against the animal when he’d got here. He kept quiet when Ennis broke off toward the stable door and headed back to the house. Maybe before they went to bed there’d be a time to say something about what was going on at the feedlot....

When he heard his name called, he stopped and turned around. Ennis was standing not far away in front of the open stable door, with the yellow brightness of the exposed light bulbs inside pouring around his body, throwing him in a glare-shadow so it was hard for Jack to see his face. 

When Ennis spoke, though, Jack heard him.

“Just so you know.... You might say we’ve come a long way, but the important part ain’t changed for me.” Ennis cleared his throat and looked off to the side, and now Jack could see him better. “Not really. So we still better be careful this Saturday.”

It was like scuffling through the trickle of a stream only to have a waterfall suddenly tumble down on him. Feeling drenched Jack, and he wanted to lift his face to it, to revel in it. He hadn’t seen it coming, though he should have. Why didn’t he ever remember how Ennis did this to him, taking his breath with sweet truths? His stern man, hard like the mountains, learning to soften, to flow like water, to give such words that Jack would hold fast for a long time.

It took a range of seconds for Jack to get control of himself enough to say, “It’s that way for me too.” 

Ennis nodded. Then he turned back into the stable, disappearing into the pinto’s stall as if he needed someplace to hide.

Jack drew in breath he really needed, let it out, and then breathed again. That’s what life was, he guessed, breathing, moving forward, getting older, gaining control, and if a person was lucky, god-damned-really-lucky and determined past the bounds of what seemed possible, he found something that lasted and didn’t become only a memory.

Jack aimed for the house again, and with every step he was more sure of what to do. There was no way he was going to say anything to Ennis about his suspicions that Corliss and James were trafficking in Mexican workers, somehow transporting them over the border and then north toward jobs. Not now and not in the future. In the fresh night air, remembering the stink of rotting tortillas made his mouth taste sour. He spit out onto the grass to get rid of it.

Ennis saying that -- _the important part ain’t changed._ The two of them riding together the way they used to, but returning to their lives that were completely rearranged and so much better. Tonight, Ennis undoubtedly would try to prove that he really was a fucking machine.... To hell with the feedlot. Nothing was worth risking what was happening here between him and Ennis, making Ennis twisted up and worried about something that had nothing to do with them. To hell with Corliss Hamilton and whatever game he was playing. What business was it of Jack Twist’s? His business was here with Ennis, and anything else could blow away on the wind.

The phone was ringing when he got inside. It was Bobby, calling back reluctantly with the information that Jack had been pressing him to get, which was when that four day Fair Weekend was going to be. Of course, it was this same weekend, Friday through next Monday that the boy had off. There was a rare football game scheduled for Thursday night, so playing in the band for that wasn’t in the way. Jack frowned into the phone, pretty sure that the boy had known all this and delayed telling him. Ennis came in and washed his hands at the kitchen sink as Jack pushed his son to make the trip to see them anyway, short notice or no, and he’d wandered away into the back room by the time Bobby said okay, he guessed he could. _You’ll get to go to a local rodeo,_ Jack said, hoping that might make it easier, because maybe the boy would want to know he could get out and about and not be trapped in the house with them the whole time. 

“Ennis,” Jack called when he put down the phone. They needed to talk about this even if not about other things. Life got damn complicated sometimes. 

*****  



	2. Not Much Choice

Not a dream, just not being able to fall asleep, losing himself in the eyes-open shadowland and letting his thoughts run riot. Suppose during this visit his only son kicked up a fuss. Suppose he got red in the face, clenched his fists, and hollered out loud: I hate you, Dad.

_I hate you, Dad. I don’t ever want to come here again._

_How can you be a faggot? My own father! I’m afraid people will find out. At college next year I’m telling everybody I meet that I’m an orphan._

_It’s disgusting. It’s not natural. Why can’t my dad be normal like everybody else?_

Jack hitched in a breath as quietly as he could and rolled over, tucking his hands under his cheek. The clock glowed green at him, two fifty-two. 

It wouldn’t happen. Bobby was a good son, and he’d already shown that he was willing to try. It would be okay when he came this Friday. This was all dumb imagining. He needed to put it to rest, forget it, and concentrate on what was fine. Better yet, get some sleep. 

But suppose…suppose Ennis…. 

_Jack, I’ve had enough. Just can’t take this anymore. In my own house, being judged, your boy staring at me._

_This ain’t gonna work. You know that, I know that. Who are we trying to fool? It’s all gonna come down on us._

_Doesn’t mean I don’t…. You know how I feel. But two men together, forget it. Your Bobby’s shown me clear. Bye, Jack._

Jack shivered all over as if he was naked in a blizzard, and then he abruptly rolled back onto his other side, where he could see the dark outline curled up away from him. Jack put his hand out and let it rest on the curve of the man’s shoulder. He felt the realness of it. Ennis wasn’t going away. 

_Jesus Christ._

_No, really. Jesus Christ? Or whoever’s up there listening, maybe one of those other gods, I don’t know. Whoever you are, don’t…. Don’t let this…._

Nobody was listening, and he’d forgotten how to pray long ago. There was no sense to this. What had happened to him, the Jack Twist who used to look on the good side of things all the time? It was Ennis who was the worrier, not him. 

His fingers slid down Ennis’s bare arm, down to his elbow, where Jack tightened his grip. Ennis Del Mar had happened to him, that’s what, or maybe life, or maybe it was having all he had now that he was suddenly scared shitless of having it taken away. Ennis. And Bobby. 

_Whoever’s listening, don’t strike me with some sort of thunderbolt for daring to talk, this gay man asking for things to work out. I need them both._

*****

Corliss’s door was closed, but everybody in the office could hear the voices behind its cheap plywood rising and falling. Corliss and James were arguing over something, even though they were keeping things quiet enough that no words came through. Jack had been straining his ears, trying to pick up the sense of the talk, but he didn’t know what they were worked up about. He hadn’t heard Mexico or wetbacks or the Rio Grande or Chicago, but then he hadn’t heard much of anything else either. 

Jack glanced up at plain-Jane Marge sniffling behind her big round glasses as she sat at her desk, and then he beat a retreat from women and their emotions by sending his eyes down to the yellow notepad in front of him. 

He’d been brought up in the school of hard knocks, that was for sure, and he understood that the workplace wasn’t a nursery school where folks got coddled. This was the real world they were living in, where men like L.D. and Corliss were a fact of life. But Corliss treated Marge almost as badly as his daddy had treated…. Well, not that bad. But bad enough. Jack judged him for it. There wasn’t any cause.

Marge was re-typing the contract that Corliss had thrown back in her face, saying in that cold way of his that he didn’t know it was possible for a person to be so blind as to not see the three typos in it, and that he wasn’t going to allow the feedlot to be represented by her stupidity. Jack didn’t know how he could let loose with things like that in front of all of them, with her face falling and the pained look in her eyes. Sure, Marge wasn’t any genius, but who was? And everybody had some pride, not wanting to be laid low in front of other people. Jack wished the big boss would give her some slack, or at least make his cuts behind closed doors. It made life in the office hard with her misery coming out at everybody in waves. No way a person could avoid it; it’d be like trying to step over an elephant parked by the file cabinets. 

Standing at the rickety counter, Andy was on the phone talking to a waste treatment rep. He’d made sure he was on the phone pretty constantly all this Thursday morning, and Jack couldn’t blame him. Jack was all set to spend the afternoon out running feedlot errands and was counting down the time until lunch when he could leave. After that he’d go grocery shopping and pick up some stuff that Bobby might like to eat when he came visiting the next day. 

Marge blew her nose about as loud as that elephant, and Jack couldn’t help but look over at her. That was when Corliss’s office door opened and James stalked out, his frown matching the droop of his moustache. He left without even nodding to the rest of them, which wasn’t like him at all. Whatever was going on, it seemed that -- 

“Jack!” Corliss barked at him from the doorway. “Bring your prospect list in here so I know what you’re up to.”

Jack grabbed the file that was always set in his IN box. He prepared to defend himself from whatever Corliss would accuse him of, but during the next twenty minutes he didn’t have to. The boss listened to what he had to say as he talked his way through the names of ranchers who might be interested in what the feedlot could do for their bottom line, and he didn’t seem to disagree with anything. Corliss asked if he had made final arrangements with Andy for manning the booth at the fair that Saturday. When Jack said they had, plus they were going to be giving out some free stuff to get folks to come over and see what they had on offer, he actually seemed to approve. 

“Your idea?” he asked. 

Jack shrugged. He wasn’t going to admit that it was L.D.’s idea that he’d borrowed: balloons, M&Ms, and packets of popcorn. Ranchers had families, and there weren’t many families that wouldn’t like one or the other. Even Ennis liked popcorn. 

“Don’t forget to log the expense with Ginger when she gets in this afternoon,” Corliss lectured, as if Jack was prepared to pay for the freebies out of his own pocket instead of letting the part-time bookkeeper set up a reimbursement. When Jack got up to go and Corliss told him, “Don’t leave for lunch until I have a chance to talk to you again,” he didn’t have much choice but to say okay, even if that did throw a monkey wrench into his plans for escaping as soon as he could.

He sat behind his old, scratched-up desk, with the drawers that fit sort of lopsided, while Andy cheerfully told Marge she should go with him to the coffeeshop for a sandwich and some soup. She brightened right away and even gave him a peck on the cheek, and when Andy looked his way Jack gave him a thumbs up. Andy winked back at him, and then he swept Marge away. Jack was left alone in the office, though he heard Corliss moving around behind the door that separated them. Other than that, he appreciated the silence, or as much silence as the place ever got with the cattle mooing their heads off.

The minutes ticked off the clock, and he tried to wait patiently. He was going to do whatever it took to keep this job; he’d already decided that. Jobs like the one he had didn’t grow on trees, not in the Moreno Valley and not with the money he was making, and he liked it here. Not all days were like this one. He had a lot of freedom working for the feedlot, coming and going on his ranching calls. If that meant he to wait on hellfire-and-damnation Corliss Hamilton now and then, that’s what he’d do. 

He’d given things a lot of thought since Monday night when he’d decided not to tell Ennis anything about tortillas and the memory-drenched newspaper they’d been wrapped in -- that is, when he hadn’t been churning thoughts about Bobby coming. What difference was it, really, between Corliss working illegally in the Sanctuary movement and Corliss doing practically the same illegal stuff for cold cash with Mexican workers? In the eyes of the law, probably they were about the same thing. Smuggling people into the country was smuggling people into the country. Jack had been ready to look the other way before, and that hadn’t changed. Besides, what the hell was he going to do, turn the feedlot over to the cops? He snorted out loud at that thought. Sure, that would be a great way to send him out on the streets looking for work, and to send Ennis into one of his worrying spurts with good reason. 

He felt uneasy, keeping what was going on from Ennis, because they’d made promises to each other back in Amarillo about truth. But they’d been talking about a different kind of truth then, hadn’t they? He was keeping his mouth shut about this for plenty of good reasons. 

He picked up a cheap Bic pen and twiddled it between his fingers, looking at that and nothing else. Besides, he felt there was some sort of connection…. It was weird, how he’d got to thinking how everybody treated the illegal workers like shit and how they had to hide in plain sight. Everybody knew they were there but ignored the fact, pretending they were invisible even when they worked on construction crews, hammered on roofs, and were housekeepers. Heck, the cleaning lady that Lureen’d had, Gracie, she was one of them. She’d wanted to be paid in cash, and Jack had obliged her. 

It was different from the way gay men were treated, but not that much. A lot the same, except for the hate.

Jack blinked, brought the world back into focus, and tossed the pen back in the can he kept for such things on top of the desk. He was keeping his mouth shut, and he hoped that guy he’d met on his way to Chicago had a job now and was enjoying life in the good old U S of A. 

It was high noon when a diesel roar came vibrating through the walls. Before Jack had the chance to swivel around and look out the window behind him, Corliss finally came out of his office. He went over to Jack’s desk, looking sharp in a gray sports coat that he’d pulled on. “I’ve got an appointment over a late lunch in Trinidad,” he said, offering more information than he usually did about his whereabouts. “I probably won’t be back today, as my associate and I have a great deal to talk about. Can I trust you, Jack, to take care of this pick-up while I’m gone?”

This was what Corliss had wanted him to wait for? Why hadn’t he just told him? Jack wasn’t sure where James was, but he’d handled the transfer of cattle into trucks three times now with no problem. “Okay.”

“Are you sure? I know this is during lunch time.”

Jack thought he should do a double take like in a cartoon, but instead he separated himself from his chair, which he should’ve done before, stood up, and wondered what was going on. Since when did Corliss care whether or not what needed doing fit into Jack’s schedule? “I’ll see to it.” 

“Good. Here, make sure you hand this to the driver personally. It’s Hugo from Cross Country.” Corliss slapped a big brown envelope that seemed well-filled smack in the center of Jack’s green ink blotter, but even before it hit the desk Jack’s heart was sinking. Not Rob McIntyre from Hugo, Oklahoma. “And here’s the paperwork.” He put a manila folder on top of the envelope and opened it to the documentation. “He’s here already and he’s on a tight schedule, which means we need to give him a quick turnaround.” Corliss tapped him on the chest with one finger and Jack didn’t like it, though he managed not to jerk backward. “Don’t keep him waiting.” 

Jack kept quiet until the man was out the door and going down the wooden steps, but then he barely said, “Fuck,” as if he might be heard through the sheet metal walls. The trucker with the really bad breath was trouble. The way he’d complained about whatever it was he had going with Corliss was trouble. Jack knew it.

The horn from the truck sounded, loud enough to be heard halfway to Santa Fe. That asshole Hugo, wanting attention, and Jack could just imagine Corliss frowning as he drove away. “All right, all right,” Jack muttered. He grabbed the stuff from the desk, settled his hat on his head, and was on his way. 

When he got down to the loading area, two of the cowboys were already at work, with Hugo standing next to the chute with his cattle prod at the ready. Hugo said, “Hi there, Jack,” as if they knew each other well, but Jack didn’t say anything back to him. He was too busy taking in how few cattle were in the pen about to make their way up the ramp. Double-checking the paperwork showed it was all there in black and white. Hell, only twenty Brangus steers bound for a north Texas plant, so few that Hugo could’ve picked them up while driving by, barely slowing down. 

Jack tugged on his moustache while he stared at the papers that still said the same thing the second time he read them. What game was Corliss playing here? This wasn’t sensible. Any idiot would know to wait and combine these twenty head with others going the same way later next week. The time before, when it’d been two half-full trucks, that’d been one thing, and he’d figured Corliss knew things he didn’t. But this…was it a test? Was he supposed to say something about this and prove he knew this wasn’t the right way to run things? Or was this about loyalty, to show that he bought into Corliss’s way of doing things, no matter what? 

The steers were up in the truck in a blink, the cowboys worked to get the ramp down, and Hugo put his beefy hand on Jack’s elbow to pull him toward the front cab of the truck, where the driver’s door gaped open. The man let Jack go and planted his feet on the dirt, looking like a tobacco-chewing, overall-wearing doorstop. 

“Your boss don’t like me talking, and he’s proving it by sending you to do his work fer him. But you got something for me, ain’t that so?”

Jack handed over the envelope without saying a thing. 

Hugo hefted it. “Is everything here?”

Jack frowned. That hadn’t been a friendly question. “It’s sealed,” he pointed out. “Whatever’s in there, I haven’t touched it.”

“‘Whatever’s in there?’ So you don’t know.” Hugo spit from his chaw onto the ground, then ripped the envelope open with his tobacco-stained teeth. He looked at Jack, turned obviously so there was no way Jack could see inside, and made a big production out of checking what was inside. He practically stuck his nose down into it. “Looks okay,” he said, coming up for air. “You tell Corliss that -- ”

“No,” Jack interrupted. “I’m not your messenger boy. If you want to talk to Corliss, you do it yourself. He’ll be around next time.” 

Why’d he say that? Who was he really talking to? But Hugo didn’t mind. Whatever he’d seen had brightened his mood. He laughed, rolled the envelope top over itself, and tossed it up into the driver’s seat, where Jack watched it bounce against the pillow and then disappear. His eyes traveled to the gun rack set in the back of the cab and the shotgun there. Not unusual, for it seemed half the pick-ups in Texas had them, and almost that many in New Mexico. Not unusual at all to travel well-armed, especially when you were on the road with cargo worth many thousands of dollars. Heck, the lot had some guns here and there, in the mill and the bunk manager’s office, and he’d always figured other places too. James regularly nailed rats sniffing around the food supply; the guns were useful. Though Jack had never been one of those who packed a firearm in his truck, he suddenly thought about whether he should, in case somebody saw him and Ennis and took exception…. Or for some other reason.

But that was a thought for another day, he reckoned. Right now, Hugo or no Hugo, nothing was changed here at the lot, not really, and he still had things to do this afternoon and Bobby to meet tomorrow afternoon at the house. But…. He turned back to the trucker. “Have you….” Jack stopped, thought about it, and then decided to ask it anyway. “Have you been stopped by the cops again?”

“Nope,” Hugo said with a smack of his lips. “But even if I am, I’m okay now, I reckon. See?” 

Nope, Jack hadn’t seen, and that was nothing but good, he figured. 

The cowboys had already disappeared, undoubtedly off to their own lunch. Hugo said, “I got to get going,” and grabbed the handle to haul himself into the tractor. He got halfway there, but then it seemed as if his big denim-covered butt, practically staring Jack in the face, got suspended, and Jack heard, “Crap.” Hugo dropped down to the ground, landing lightly on his feet for a fat man. 

“Been at this job twelve years, can’t believe I forgot to get you to sign. That’d be just great, me driving off with no title to these critters. You got the papers?”

Jack’s face got hot, and he felt like twenty kinds of idiot, since that was the whole point, him signing off on the transfer of the property from feedlot to trucker. He fumbled with the folder Corliss had given him, knowing Hugo’s judging eyes were on him the whole time, and finally found the stack he needed paperclipped together. He scrawled J.H. Twist, tore off the lot’s copies and handed the rest over. 

“There,” he said. 

The man from Oklahoma spit on the ground again, the dirty juice arcing out to land with a splat. “Now I’ll make the wheels burn. Here I go, Sadie.” 

Jack stood back while the eighteen wheeler pulled away. One of the steers called out loud and started kicking against the side of the truck, but that wasn’t going to change anything about where he was going or what would happen to him there. Jack’s stomach growled, and he checked his watch. He’d bought into whatever this was all about, it was none of his business, and that was that. It was time for him to go. 

*****

The next day, at twenty-seven minutes after three, Jack heard the sound of a car turning into the drive. He went outside into the warm air of the late summer afternoon and waited by his truck, watching as Bobby, in his red 1982 Camaro, drove cautiously over the gravel. Jack had been nervous all day. He'd even snapped at Marge at the office and then felt sorry and tried to make it up by getting her a Coke after lunch. 

Now, seeing Bobby coming closer, almost here, he was surprised how a fierce joy rose up in him, clogging his throat. Jack was so glad to see him. He knew this was an important weekend. He had to show Bobby that there wasn’t anything bad about the way he was living with Ennis. He knew that he’d have to find ways to go against whatever it was that L.D. had poured into his ears, but that wasn’t what was welling up in his heart now. Here was his boy. There was only him and Bobby in this world: no parents, no grandparents, no brothers or sisters, no wife, no mother. Just the two of them, the two Twist men.

The engine noise died, producing sudden silence, and Jack walked quickly behind the car over to the driver’s side. By the time he got there, Bobby had opened the door and was getting out slowly, because maybe even teenagers could get stiff after a six hour drive. 

“Hi, Dad,” he said, and it was something special, hearing Bobby’s voice at that moment, here where he lived with Ennis. 

“Hi, son,” Jack said. For a second the two of them stood there, but then Jack reached arms around him and they shared a hug. He was relieved when one of Bobby’s arms came about him.

He pulled back and looked at his boy, because though they’d seen each other a little over three weeks before, still Bobby looked different. He’d been on the verge of needing a haircut back then, and it seemed he’d resisted getting that done. His brown hair, that reminded Jack of his own mama’s color before she’d got old, was long enough to let the wind lift it, or for some high school girl to run her fingers through it. 

But Jack kept his mouth shut. The last thing he needed to do was rag on the boy the minute he set foot on the place. “You have any trouble finding us?” Jack asked instead. As soon as he said it, he heard that “us” real loud, but then he told himself that if he started watching every word, this would be a real long visit. 

“No, you gave good directions,” Bobby said. He used his key to lock the car, as if this was the big city where it would be wise to do that. Jack had always locked his truck when he lived in Amarillo, but not since he’d come to Eagle Nest. “Uh,” Bobby said, shoving his keys in his back jeans pocket, “could I use your bathroom?”

“Oh, sure, come on in.” 

He waited in the kitchen -- that was pretty clean -- for Bobby to come out. Bobby had kicked against making this trip, talking about how he'd miss band practice on Saturday for the big UIL competition. Jack had said he couldn’t help that, this was the only four day weekend before Thanksgiving, and they needed to take advantage of that. He wasn’t about to pay for the boy to fly in a private plane to Taos like Lureen had done; he’d have to drive, and in Jack’s opinion even a three day weekend didn’t give enough time for that. Jack didn’t want to tempt fate: one Twist had logged thousands of miles on the road with no problems, and he didn’t want to take a chance on a tired seventeen-year-old using up the rest of the family’s driving luck. Whenever Bobby visited, he intended to make sure they had the four day turnaround. 

“So,” Jack said when Bobby came out, “can I get you something to drink? I put in some Dr Pepper for you.” 

Bobby shook his head, started to shove his hands in his pockets and then pulled them out. His eyes roved quickly left and then right, like he was trying to take the place in without actually needing to look, and then returned to stare at Jack’s left shoulder. “No thanks.” 

Jack resisted the impulse to check if he had some bug crawling up his shirt or something, because he knew what this was. Some of his good feeling ebbed away. He’d hoped things would be easy between them from the beginning, but he’d known it probably wouldn’t happen like that. They needed some time. “How about a tour?” That part Jack had planned, to ease them into each other’s company. 

They started outside, as he figured Bobby could stretch his legs and they’d cover ground that there couldn’t be any objection to. Bobby had a passing acquaintance with horses, not much more than that, since it’d never been something that caught him, but he still seemed interested when they went into the stable to visit the pinto. After that they went out to the paddock to see the chestnut mare that Ennis had got from Floyd. She was already looking a lot better, and Ennis had said a few nights before that he thought he could sell her for five hundred or more. 

“How far does your land go?” Bobby wanted to know.

“See that rise down there? Well, no reason why we can’t go that way. You up for a walk?” 

“Sure.” 

Half an hour later they’d gone all the way around the fencing of the pasture, down the start of the path that led to the foothills, and were now headed back to the house. Bobby still wasn’t talking like he usually did. Bobby had always been free and easy with words. He’d once told Jack that girls liked boys who could talk to them, and Jack figured that was true. As they sauntered through the wild grass and weeds, Jack was conscious of the rising peaks of the Sangre de Cristos behind them, and across the valley more mountains, with the shadows of the clouds passing over the pines and the aspens and the barren rocks. He felt the fresh air on his face, at least ten or fifteen degrees cooler than it was in roasting Texas these days. He wondered if Bobby saw it, the beauty of this place where he'd settled with Ennis, but maybe not. He’d never shown interest in riding or hiking or camping or fishing or living free in the Wyoming wild land, all the things that Jack had used as reasons for his trips north to see Ennis, a smokescreen made up of real things.

Jack asked about the Montcriefs, and how Bobby was getting along with the family. Bobby said that he’d already told that over the phone, but Jack said that he could speak freely now, in case there was anything that was a problem that he wanted to say without fear of being overheard. But it seemed there wasn’t any problem. 

They were passing by the Camaro when Jack said, “How about I show you your room now?”

“My room?” Bobby gave a thin sort of laugh. “Dad, I’m only staying here a couple nights.”

“Three nights,” Jack said. 

“Yeah, like, three nights.”

Jack opened up the side door of the house and led the way inside. “We weren’t using that room at all. It only had some boxes in it, so it might as well be yours. See, right in here.”

He’d bought a double bed with a nice headboard, a matching chest of drawers, a cheap upholstered chair in the corner, knobby brown, and a floor lamp, not to mention the blinds that’d about driven him crazy getting them up straight and working. Jack and blinds, they had what Lureen used to call an adversarial relationship, because he could never get them to move the way he wanted them to. Ennis had heard him cursing at them the night before and hollered at him to shut the fuck up, the boy wasn’t gonna care a hill of beans one way or the other, and that he should stop acting like some nervous Nellie. Proving to Jack’s mind that Ennis was on edge about the visit too.

Now Jack watched Bobby look things over. A cord hung down from the corner of the slanted ceiling. If it was yanked hard, the pull-down steps that led to the unused storage attic would appear, but even with that, to his eyes the room seemed okay. Nothing like what the boy had back in Childress, or used to have, but Jack had tried. 

When Bobby didn’t say anything, Jack went over to the chest of drawers. “Just for now, here’s a clock radio. Maybe over the holidays we can pick out a stereo for you, have it here, and you can bring some of your albums with you.” 

“That would work.”

Jack looked over at the bedspread. He’d gone to the Sears store in Raton and tried to get one as close to what Bobby had at home as he could, but he’d found that he couldn’t really remember what that looked like. Well, it didn’t matter. Like Ennis said, the boy probably didn’t care. 

“Okay?” Jack asked. He sure wished Bobby’s tongue would get loosed. 

“Sure.”

“Good then. Uh, let me show you the rest of the house.”

Jack led the way out into the wide open laundry room space, which in the way of the place was the connecting room to the bedroom, and then out into the kitchen. “We've got three phones,” Jack said, “actually four now that Ennis has his business line, though we sure don’t need-- ”

“That reminds me,” Bobby interrupted. “I've got to call Mrs. Montcrief and let her know I’m here.”

“Oh, right. Sure,” Jack said. He should’ve thought of that. Of course Rose would want to know. Though it made him feel…. There was no sense in being resentful. Bobby needed a motherly woman in his life, probably, and if Rose Montcrief was willing to take in his child and treat him like a son, he shouldn’t…. He gestured toward the kitchen phone on the wall. “Go ahead.”

Bobby kept it short. He hung up and reported that Mrs. Montcrief sent her hello to Jack, and Jack said that was nice of her. But then he realized he should’ve got on after Bobby and thanked her, asked her if she needed anything, and if the arrangements they’d made were working. He had to do that, maybe next week after Bobby was gone. 

“So this is the kitchen,” he said, gesturing around to it, “and you’ve already seen the bathroom.” 

“Only one?”

“Yeah, it's not the Taj Mahal we’re living in, but it -- ”

“It’s pretty small.” 

Jack didn’t need to have that pointed out to him. It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? “It’s just the two of us. Besides, what was important was finding the land Ennis needed for his horses.”

“You couldn’t find anything better than this? I mean, well….” 

Bobby looked around, and Jack tried to see it through his eyes. But he couldn’t. This place was all right; it was working for them. Jack kept his voice even. “Nope, and we looked. We went around with a realtor for a couple of days.”

“Both of you? You and…Ennis, together?”

He’d had to move heaven and earth to make that happen, but, yeah. “Since we were both going to be living here, it seemed to make sense, son. This house is okay. It seems bigger now than it used to be, because we didn’t have any furniture in your room or this front room here.” He led the way forward to what he guessed they should start calling the living room, with the new navy blue sofa, the matching striped chair with an ottoman, and the nineteen inch TV up on a stand. 

Bobby knocked on the wood of the new desk. “You didn’t have furniture here? How come?”

Jack lifted his shoulders. “It didn’t seem like we needed any. We've got the back room, I’ll show you that in a minute. You know....” He hesitated, because neither one of them had mentioned Lureen yet. It seemed to him time to do so. “Your mom gave us this room.”

Bobby pushed the hair off his forehead and frowned. “What do you mean?”

He couldn’t think of it without laughing inside, because even from the grave Lureen was still having her way. “We got a call from this furniture store in Taos saying they had a delivery for me. I told them they had it wrong, but it seemed your mom ordered all this for us after she visited. You know how she bought gifts for her friends when she was here?”

Bobby looked down toward his sneakers. “Yeah.”

“So…. What’d she get you?”

“A new drum set,” the boy said quietly. “The best there is. She, like, wrote me a note to go with it and said I should use it to go to college and march in the band.” Bobby looked up at Jack with his face set, fighting off any tears. “Did she give you a note?”

“Sort of. It was written on the furniture papers. You want to read it?”

“Okay.”

“Come on, I've got it in here.” 

He’d thought about whether to let his son into the bedroom he shared with Ennis, and finally decided that he should bite the bullet and do it. He'd intended to make it part of the tour, so there wouldn’t be any tip-toeing around the place or the subject, try to make it a normal part of the house and the way things were done. Jack walked into the room and up to his side where he’d stashed the note in the drawer of his nightstand. He’d made up the bed before he left for work, closed the closet doors that they most often left open, picked up his underwear from the corner, and made sure both tubes of KY were put away. He was hoping there was nothing about this room that would make it a problem.

“Here it is,” he said, doing his best to sound natural. He turned around to show what Lureen had left him to Bobby, but the boy was standing over in the doorway. 

“Bobby?”

He watched his son’s Adam’s apple jerk up and down; he really was growing up and was almost a man. And then Bobby came forward, his eyes mainly on the floor, but at least he did come forward and take the paper from Jack’s hand. 

_Dear Jack and Ennis, I wish I could be there to see your face when you get this. I know you didn’t expect anything from me Jack but how could I go shopping for my friends and Daddy and mama and not get you anything. You two are living like your monks or something. You need some furniture in that empty room. So I got you some. You better get an antenna on this telvision I got you like the one you have already on the other one. Since Bobby will be with you next summer especially I don’t want him having to fight you two for his favorite programs. I don’t understand why you two are like this but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore._

_Please don’t forget me. Do everything you should by Bobby._

_Lureen_

Long after he should have been through reading, Bobby stood there looking at his mother’s words written on the invoice, with a blank, frozen look on his face. Jack blew dust off the shade of his bedside lamp. 

“Your mom, she sure was something.” 

“Yeah, she was.” Bobby’s eyes met his. “I can’t talk about her with Charlie’s family. I think they don’t want to hear about her. Like, they never say anything about her.” 

Jack went to him and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I guess they don’t want to upset you. But I’m here. We can talk about her, can’t we? Any time you want to talk about her, you give me a call.” 

“Okay.” 

Bobby’s shoulder hunched up, and Jack drew back, because he took that as a sign that Bobby didn’t want to be touched right then. “How about we get that Dr Pepper?”

Not long after, Jack started cooking dinner early because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. That chafed him, because he’d never felt awkward around Bobby before. He opened cans with the electric opener and tried to remember how easy it’d been in the last days when the Twist family had still been living together. Bobby had been sixteen when Jack left. Before suppertime he’d been up in his room doing homework, or listening to music, or out with his friends, breezing in at the last minute. At least that’s how it happened on those few nights the three of them had sat down to a dinner together. Mostly toward the end it’d been catch-as-catch-can, with a plate waiting in the refrigerator when Jack got in, sometimes late, sometimes even later. Or there had been times when he'd got an inter-office call from Lureen at the dealership telling him to stop off and bring home something for himself, because she wasn’t going to be around and Bobby was staying up at the school after band practice to see the basketball game. 

He stirred constantly until gently bubbling, the way Lureen’s recipe said, and thought of how he was living such a regular life with Ennis that _Home and Gardens_ and _Good Housekeeping_ and Dear Abby combined would probably give them an award, the way they met for dinner and broke bread together every day they could, and were disappointed when they couldn’t. 

But Bobby being here sure wasn’t an everyday sort of thing, so he fiddled around the stove. Bobby sat in one of the kitchen chairs. Jack tried to get him talking again like they’d done outdoors, tried to lead him to say something about his mom, but that letter from Lureen had instead closed his mouth. Bobby answered him when he asked something directly, but otherwise he mainly looked out the screen door to the yard. It wasn’t until Jack heard the Ram come in off the road, and saw how Bobby sat up suddenly, that he realized the boy had been waiting for Ennis. Bobby even announced it. “Ennis is here.” Jack heard the engine get turned off. Then the bang of the truck door. Then the crunch of footsteps on gravel, getting closer. And finally the screen door creaking as it swung open. Jack looked up at last, not letting himself think anything bad was going to happen. But here it was….

Since the day he’d shown up on Jack’s doorstep, Jack had kissed Ennis -- and Ennis had kissed him -- when they saw each other at night. It’d got to be a habit, but he didn’t make a move toward that, and neither did Ennis. Ennis didn’t even look at him as he paused in the doorway. Bobby got up and said “Hi, Ennis,” before anybody else had a chance to say anything, with the tone of somebody forcing himself to get something hard done and over with. 

“Hey there, Bobby,” Ennis said, so quietly he could barely be heard. He got his feet unstuck, walked over, and offered his hand. They shook, and then Ennis let go of the boy. Jack watched as he swallowed and then straightened, and Jack saw the effort it took for him to look over toward where he was standing. But Ennis did look. His eyes locked with Jack’s, careful, wary. “What’s for dinner?” Ennis asked.

Jack started stirring again with the plastic spoon, just in time to stop the sauce from going over. “One of Bobby’s favorites, this creamed chicken thing, see?” 

Ennis went over to the big pan on a burner and looked down with what seemed to be fake interest. Jack stared at the tan line behind his ear from where his hat shaded him. It occurred to him that normally he’d be touching Ennis now, maybe a hand on his waist for a second or if he was feeling frisky he’d tug on some hair and listen to Ennis complain about it. But they couldn’t act naturally around Bobby.

“You and Junior should get together,” Ennis said, flicking a glance up at him as if it was a brave thing to do. “You’re getting to be a cook. What’re these things?” He went as if to poke a finger into the creamy mix, but held it back an inch.

“Serves you right if you get burned,” Jack said. “Didn’t your mama teach you better than to be sticking your dirty fingers in people’s food?” Shit, why’d he say that? He didn’t want to say stuff like that to Ennis in front of Bobby. He might take it wrong. “Those are canned mushrooms.”

Ennis looked doubtful, but he went off to the sink and washed his hands, staring out the window as if green grass growing was the most interesting thing he’d seen for the month. “Uh, you have a good trip?” he asked to the screen, but he was talking to Bobby. 

“Yeah, it was fine.” Bobby eased himself back down into the seat he’d been occupying, that Jack hadn’t thought to tell him was his and not the one he wanted Bobby to sit in. 

Ennis went over to the refrigerator where they’d hung a towel on the handle, and Jack watched the drops of water fall from his hands onto the floor. “Guess I’ll go get changed,” he said to nobody in particular, though he never did put on new clothes when he got home from work. Jack nodded, though Ennis didn’t need permission from him. 

Even though Jack had banged around getting everything ready, he hadn’t talked with Ennis about what they were going to do with Bobby here. It was like not making plans meant they wouldn’t jinx the visit, or maybe that they could pretend nothing would need to be changed in the way they lived and acted, which sure wasn’t true. 

When he got back Ennis was wearing one of his best shirts, white with brown stripes running down it. They sat down to the chicken over noodles, along with applesauce. After they’d each shoveled in a couple of mouthfuls, Ennis put down his fork, wiped his hand on his jeans and said, “So, this is one of your favorites?” 

Bobby nodded. “It used to be, anyway. I asked for this on my birthday a couple years.”

“It’s not your favorite anymore?” Jack asked, disappointed. He’d looked through all the recipes he’d brought home with him that weekend in July.

“It’s fine, Dad.” 

All three of them did some more eating, and through the sounds of chewing and swallowing and not anything else, Jack realized that much as he always thought of how quiet Ennis was, the truth was that they usually got a lot of talking done over dinner. It had to be that way, as it was one of the main times they saw each other. The time before horse-training they used for letting each other know things with words. The time after horse-training was a little TV and then letting each other know things other ways in the bedroom. 

Bobby reached for the glass of water by his plate, drank from it, set it down, and then said, “Uh, I saw your picture in the living room.” 

It took a couple of seconds for Ennis to realize Bobby was talking to him. His head came up. “What’s that? Oh, you mean the one of Junior and me.”

“Junior?” 

Ennis cleared his throat. “She’s my oldest girl. That’s from last year, her high school graduation.”

“She sent it to Ennis for a birthday present last week,” Jack put in. 

“You just had a birthday?”

Ennis didn’t seem able to say anything about that, claiming to have a birthday like any normal person, and with a glance he passed responsibility for answering across the table to Jack. 

“Wednesday last,” Jack said. 

“Happy birthday then, a little late. Hope you had a good one,” Bobby said as smoothly as a Bobby from ten years in the future, all grown.

Ennis nodded like a judge handing down a tough sentence. “Yeah, it was real good.” Another forkful of food went in his mouth, got chewed, and then he came out with, “About as good as this chicken your dad’s made for us.” 

Bobby made a sort of “uh?” sound, and Jack guessed he was trying to figure it out. He was back to being a teenager, not realizing how much of an effort Ennis was making. He took pity on him and followed Ennis’s lead, even if it was sort of feeble. “Does that mean you think we should throw the leftovers to the hogs?”

“We don’t have any hogs, and I wouldn’t want to treat them so bad if we did,” Ennis said. 

“I think I’m insulted.” 

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot, Twist,” Ennis said, and then he ducked his head, as if he realized he’d said way more than he’d meant to. “I guess it’s worth eating.” 

“Admit it,” and Jack forced a laugh, “you think this is the best thing you’ve put in your mouth in forever.” And then he cringed to hear what he’d just said.

“Best thing since that birthday steak you made,” Ennis said with a shrug, not getting it.

Thankfully Bobby didn’t either. “Did you grill outside?” Bobby asked. “Like you used to do at home?”

“Nope, we don’t have a grill yet. I fried them on the stove.” 

Bobby stuck a spoon in the applesauce, but instead of lifting it he swirled it around, flattening out the mound of it on his plate, more like he was seven than seventeen. “What did you….”

“What?”

“I mean…. I don’t suppose you…. I don’t guess you two get each other presents or anything. It’s not something a….” He trailed off, looking down at his food, seeming to be afraid of the answer, but if that was so, Jack wondered why he’d asked. 

He didn’t want to answer, because that birthday…it’d been special between him and Ennis. He wouldn’t forget how Ennis had said that he’d never had such a day as Jack had made for him. Ennis wasn’t an easy man to do for, but Jack had managed then, and that meant something to him, and he thought to Ennis too. 

On the other hand, this might be a way to show Bobby…. Maybe that’s why he asked. He was groping to figure them out just as much as they were groping with how to present themselves to him, truly. At least, that’s what Jack hoped was happening.

“Sure we get each other gifts,” Jack said, trying not to show all the thinking he was doing. “I don’t know why you’d think we’d be different. You care for somebody, you want to do something on their birthday. I got Ennis -- ” Bobby was sure all tensed, his hand a fist next to his plate, as if he was braced for Jack to say he’d got Ennis the blow job of the month, which would have been true “ -- a pair of boots.” 

“Oh,” Bobby said. 

“He’s wearing them now. Show him, Ennis.” 

That was probably asking for too much, for lines appeared between Ennis’s eyes but then disappeared, like he’d smoothed them away with effort. He stuck one foot out, and Jack was struck by how dumb it all seemed, as if Bobby really gave a damn about what the boots looked like. But…. They were the nicest, most expensive work boots that Jack had ever seen, steel-toed, sure to last years. He craned his head and checked them out. At some time or other Ennis had put polish to the leather. 

“Those are nice,” Bobby said, and Ennis right away tucked his foot back under the table. “Uh, if you don’t mind me asking, what birthday was this? How old are you?”

There wasn’t much left on Ennis’s plate. He made that disappear and then picked up the bowl in the center of the table for a little more. Throw it to the hogs, Jack thought, his ass. “Forty.”

“Forty? You’re the same age as Dad?”

“Yep.” 

“Wow, that’s, like, weird.” 

Ennis threw him a look through his eyelashes, as his head was down concentrating on the food. 

“I mean, that you’re practically the same age. Like twins.”

Jack gave a low laugh, remembering a time long ago when he’d said the same thing. “We’re thirteen days apart,” he said. It was strange, but he took some satisfaction from knowing that, how close their birthdays were, as if they were of the same blood or the same time, as if being close in that way meant they had a better chance of being together. He looked across the table at Ennis, feeling the faintest stirring down below, more like a dream of a thought of an idea, because after all Bobby was there; but heaven help him, for some reason he found his and Ennis’s rubbing-shoulders-birthdays to be sexy. 

“I wonder how often that happens,” the boy said. 

“How’s that?” 

“That, uh, that two…that people who are…. Sandy’s four months older than me. And Mom was a year older than you. But I guess it doesn’t mean anything.” Bobby pushed back. “Dad, I got your birthday present in the trunk of my car.”

“You do?” He hadn’t given that any thought, and was touched that the boy had remembered, without Lureen there to prod him. 

“You want to open it now or leave it for the real day next week?” 

“I've never said no to a gift,” Jack said. “Bring her on.” 

Bobby went out into the yard, and it was like the air was suddenly lighter without him in the room with them. Until that minute, Jack hadn’t realized how tough the last hours with his son had been. 

“Hey, bud,” came Ennis’s voice. “You doing okay?”

He looked over at Ennis, asking the question real seriously. “Yeah.” Jack nodded. “I’m fine." Suddenly, dinner on Monday night, with just the two of them eating hot dogs or spaghetti or something normal like that, it seemed real far away but something he was desperate to have come soon. “How’re you doing?”

“All right,” Ennis said, but Jack didn’t believe him. He was probably the same as Jack was, or maybe a hell of a lot worse, but if they stuck this weekend out he had to believe good things would come from it. They were building something here to last way, way into the future. Ennis went on, “I always thought any boy of yours would talk more.” 

“You haven't exactly seen him in the best of circumstances. Give him a chance and he’ll talk your ear off.” 

Ennis got up and started stacking the dishes. “I've already got one Twist that does that, don’t need another. I’ll take care of this, you sit there and wait for your gift.”

Bobby came in then, the door banging shut behind him. He carried a square package wrapped in red and blue striped paper, but there were three big photo albums on top of it. Jack felt a jolt of mixed emotions when he saw them: guilt that this was pretty much all that was left of their family, happiness that him and Bobby’d had that and there were some reminders of good times. He got up, took them out of Bobby’s hands, and set them down on the table. 

“You remembered to bring these,” he said, with pleasure that surprised him. 

“I thought we could look at them after dinner, after you open this. Sit down, Dad. Here.” 

Bobby dumped the box in his lap, but Jack picked it up and shook it. He grinned at his son. “It’s heavy.” 

Bobby sat back down. “I got you rocks from the square, so you’d remember Childress. They didn’t cost much.”

Jack frowned as much as he could and was rewarded when Bobby laughed at him, the most free sound that had come from the boy since he’d arrived. From over by the sink, Ennis might’ve said something, but it was lost when he turned the water on.

“It couldn’t be rocks, I can hear something swishing around.” He shook it again. 

“If you keep doing that it’ll break. I got you one of those water globes you shake up, with a mermaid in the middle.” 

“Perfect,” Jack said. “Just what I wanted.” 

Ennis stepped over, drying his hands on a towel. “Guess I’ll have to take back the new truck I was gonna give you then, if you’re into mermaids these days. You gonna open that or not?” 

Jack didn’t have any notion what this gift was, but it felt special, getting this from Bobby now. Even if the three of them hadn’t found their balance yet, still he was opening this up from his son with Ennis looking over his shoulder, a scene he’d never been fool enough to imagine. Was this really his life he was living? He ripped off the paper, lifted up the top flaps, and pulled out one of two glass bottles inside. _Jaramillo’s Picante Sauce,_ the label said. 

Bobby was watching him closely. “I know it’s not much. But I thought maybe you missed this. It’s the red sauce they use at Rudy’s, remember? That’s the -- ”

“ -- the Mexican restaurant south of town.”

“Except maybe it’s not your favorite any more, like me and the chicken.” 

Back when his son had been ten or eleven, around then, they’d gone to Rudy’s all the time. The food was passable. Mexican wasn’t Jack’s favorite but living in Texas and now New Mexico, he went with the flow. Ennis liked it. _Jaramillo’s Picante Sauce_ might not be on the list of foods he dreamed about, but he didn’t care about that one bit. Bobby remembered those meals when Jack had still been trying with the family. Back then, father and son had flipped up the paper drink coasters from the edge of the table and tried to catch them before they fell to the floor, Lureen had shushed them, and they’d all laughed because they’d known it wasn’t going to happen. 

“No, it is my favorite,” Jack said. “This is great. Thanks, Bobby.”

His first impulse was to hug Bobby but then he remembered how he hadn’t wanted to be touched after reading Lureen’s note. Or maybe it was because this house was where his dad lived with another man he hardly knew, and he was extra skittish about such things now. Instead Jack punched his boy on the shoulder and smiled.

“Hey!” Bobby grimaced as if he’d been pummeled by Muhammad Ali. “You know, if you increased my allowance maybe I could get you something nicer for Christmas.” 

“I’m not falling for that. So, you ready to look at pictures?”

Jack got up to put the bottles of sauce in a cabinet, wadded up the gift paper, and threw it like an NBA star into the trash can by the tiny broom closet, where they kept Ennis’s rifle stashed in the back. “Deuce!” he said, and he was happy. 

“If you’re throwing stuff,” Ennis said, “let’s see if you can catch too.” 

A wet dishcloth came sailing at him, and Jack grabbed it with one quick hand. 

“Not bad for a bullrider,” Ennis said. “I figure the table needs wiping before you spread things out.” 

Bobby lifted up the albums, all three, and Jack started wiping the surface, but he saw Bobby look at him funny. “What?” 

“Nothing. You never did much cleaning at home.” 

His big circling swipes on the table got slower. “Your mom and Gracie pretty much took care of that, yeah.” 

“I guess…. I guess you two sort of share doing that stuff now?” 

“I don’t see anybody else here to take care of it. Most of the time one of us cooks and the other one cleans up.” 

“Oh,” Bobby said. “I guess…. It’s like if…when I go to college. If I don’t stay in the dorms, if I get an apartment and share with some guys to keep the expenses down. It’s like that, right?”

Jack flicked one last crumb down to the floor. “Somebody’s got to get the dust off the TV screen and somebody’s got to clean the bathroom every couple months so the germs don’t take over. That’s just the way it is, whether it’s students living together, or a man and a woman, or Ennis and me.” 

Bobby nodded and rubbed the wetness left by the cloth with the sleeve of his shirt, to dry it, and then he put the albums back on the table. 

The first photo page got opened to a birthday party for Bobby. It must’ve been when he was six or seven. Sometime, anyway, before Jack found out about Ennis’s divorce. He’d rented a Shetland pony for the afternoon, and there Bobby was, all teeth and a mop of hair, sitting on top with Lureen holding on to him. Jack remembered taking that picture in their backyard before kids came with their chatter. Another world, a long way away from his life now.

He turned pages along with Bobby, remembering this, remembering that, while the clatter of plates and water running told of the man Jack was living with doing the dishes behind them. Jack thought of asking him over to look at one photo or another, but there weren’t all that many of him there, and he didn’t know that Ennis wanted any more reminders of Jack’s life with his family. That things had gone so well so far over dinner was more than he probably had a right to, and he was grateful. He wasn’t going to push it. 

The phone rang when they got to beach vacation pictures that Jack especially wanted to see, though he really didn’t know why, he just did. It was Jenny on the phone. Ennis went into the bedroom to take it, and Jack put the kitchen receiver down when Ennis hollered that he’d picked up in there. A gust of cold air blew in through the screen door from the west. Maybe weather was coming in, which wouldn’t be the best for the rodeo the next day but couldn’t be helped if it happened. Nobody could control the weather. Jack closed the door and the window over the sink, cutting them off from the sounds of the outside world, the traffic noise that every now and then came to them, but mostly the cicadas in the trees and the flapping wings of birds in flight, purple martins trying to catch insects for their evening meal, and the low calling of the wind. 

He sat back down at the table and told Bobby that Ennis would go work the horses soon, but that maybe after they were finished with what they were doing the two of them could go down to Eagle Nest and drive around as the sun set. Bobby could see the town, and the lake, and the long cut of the road down the heart of the Moreno Valley toward Angel Fire and beyond. On the way back, they could pick up some ice cream for dessert, bring it back here, and watch TV. 

“That okay with you?”

“Sure,” Bobby said. 

They went back to flipping pages in the photo album, but something had changed. Jack could see that Bobby’s heart wasn’t it in. After a few quiet minutes the boy bit his lip and asked, “Does Jenny know?”

Jack didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah, she does.”

“And I guess Junior does too?”

“That’s right.”

“Are they okay with it?”

How okay Ennis’s girls were with their dad being with Jack was still a question in his mind, because phone calls from half the country away were a lot different from sitting in their kitchen and facing the reality of it head-on the way Bobby was doing. Suddenly, Jack was awfully proud of his son. For all his being quiet, he was still asking questions, and it was obvious the boy was doing his best to make sense of his dad and the way he was living. 

“I think so,” Jack said. “I’ve talked with Junior on the phone now and then. They’re good girls. They both called on Ennis’s birthday, and I know he appreciated that.” 

Bobby scratched at a mark on the tabletop. “And you say Mom understood, you and Ennis together.”

Had he said that? He guessed so. “Yeah, she did.” 

“Understood how?”

Jack frowned. An answer didn’t come to him right away. Lureen had understood…hadn’t she? She had without really saying it, though in that note she’d left with the furniture she’d said she didn’t. That must have taken Bobby’s attention. Maybe it was more that it wasn’t important for her to understand than that she really had. It was kind of complicated, in a way only Lureen had ever been able to complicate Jack’s thinking. That had probably gone a long way to him marrying her in the first place. 

“I mean…. Wasn’t she really mad at you?”

What was he supposed to say to that? That she’d punched him in the side at the Cimarron Coffee Shop, and she’d cried more than once, and she’d said if she had the luxury of time she’d be furious? But she’d accepted Jack living with a man before she’d left Childress, and she hadn’t been surprised to find Ennis answering her knock on their door. Most important, that last weekend he’d spent with her before she died, Jack had held her on the couch in the home where they used to live together and she’d cried then, raw, frightened, real-Lureen tears. There hadn’t been anything between them held back because they knew it all: their mistaken beginning, their stubborn, wrongful continuing, and her inevitable end that they couldn’t stand again. It hadn’t meant anything then that she was his ex-wife or that he was her gay ex-husband, they just were. He couldn’t explain the…the purity of that night to Bobby, when he barely understood it himself. 

“I wouldn’t say that your mom was mad, exactly, but -- ”

“And when did she figure it out? Or did you tell her before you left?” Bobby’s words came tumbling out. “You said you two might’ve been friends if she hadn’t died, but how could that happen? I don’t think she would have…. I don’t get it. I don’t think Mom would ever have been friends with you once she found out.” 

“Bobby, hold on. I don’t -- ” 

“It’s different with Ennis’s daughters or me. I don’t have a choice. His daughters don’t have a choice either. But Mom did. She never would’ve stood for it.” 

Jack sat back suddenly; he hadn’t expected to hear this, not with the way Bobby had been so far. But before he had a chance to say anything, Bobby said, “It doesn’t matter.” He closed the one album they’d been looking at, pulled another one over in front of him, and opened it to any old page. It showed a picture of a barbecue in the Twist backyard from a few years ago. Half the neighborhood had been invited, all their friends, and it’d been one hell of a day. They’d gone through every beer Lureen had put in for the occasion. Jack knew without looking closely that he was in that picture, way in the back by the fence, standing between Morgan and Randy. 

“Bobby, no, it does matter. If you -- ”

“No, it’s okay. What difference does it make?”

“But your Mom -- ”

“It doesn’t make any difference what Mom might’ve felt, because she’s….” Bobby’s voice trembled for a second, and Jack reminded himself that his son must be missing his mother something fierce. “…Mom’s not here anymore."

“Son, I know she’s not, but -- ”

The barbecue pictures disappeared as Bobby flipped the front cover over them and quickly got to his feet. “I thought you wanted to show me Eagle Nest. I drove through it, but I didn’t pay much attention. Come on, let’s go.” 

Jack got up too, a lot slower, wondering if he should let this conversation rest. Was it being cowardly to go along with Bobby now or was it being wise? 

“All right, then, we’ll do that.” He went over to the counter where him and Ennis kept their keys, picked his out, and tossed them over to Bobby. “Want to drive the truck?” 

The trip through the valley did a lot to smooth over that bump between him and Bobby. Neither one of them mentioned Lureen again, though Jack wondered where that had come from. When they got back they plopped themselves on the couch in the back room. They stretched their feet out, slouched way down on the cushions, watched some made-for-TV movie about a family who got caught in a flood with their house an island in rising waters, and ate fully half of the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream they’d got, straight from the carton, passing it back and forth with two spoons. Jack remembered a few times it’d been like this between them before, comfortable. It hadn’t happened often, and never with his son almost-grown, with truth between them. 

Ennis finally came in and regarded them like they were two crazy people when they offered him some of what was left, but only if he got his own spoon. “Fit for the looney bin,” he muttered. Jack thought he saw the tiniest light of a smile, mostly in his eyes. Maybe.

Ennis sat down in the old chair that he’d hauled from Wyoming, one of the few things in the house left over from the place he’d lived in that Jack had never seen the inside of, and he watched the last forty minutes of the movie with them. Him and Bobby didn’t say much to each other.

Later, when the house was locked up and put to sleep, when Bobby was behind a closed door with his new clock radio and the bedspread from Sears, when Ennis had shut the front bedroom door like they never did but had cause to do now, when all the lights were out and it was just him and Ennis together under the sheet, able to breathe freely at last, they settled close to one another. Jack’s right side was pressed against Ennis’s left, like two kids at a movie wild for each other but, on their first date, not sure how much farther they could go with the touching. Jack closed his eyes and tried to relax. He was about as wiped out as he could imagine being without having done a thing to cause it except be with Bobby for the last eight hours. 

Ennis’s voice came out of the dark in a whisper. “You think he can hear us?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said back just as quietly. “I don’t think so. The bathroom’s between us, and then his room is set off from that through the laundry room.” 

“He sure scooted out to bed fast, soon as you yawned.” 

Jack sighed. He knew why, and he figured Ennis knew why too: Bobby hadn’t wanted to be faced with his father saying good-night and disappearing into the same bedroom as the other man in the house. He’d escaped before he had to see that. “It’s okay.” 

A warm hand pushed out from where it was wedged between them and came to rest on his thigh. Ennis spread his fingers wide to cover as much of Jack’s skin as he could, and it felt fine, that claim Ennis was making, though real quiet in their privacy. 

“Seems I haven’t seen you in a month, having your boy here for just one day. Funny how that is.”

“I know what you mean. It felt like I should’ve introduced myself before I got under the covers with you. It’s having another person in the house with us. We're not used to that.” 

“Don’t want to get used to it.” Jack could tell when Ennis got flustered. “Shit. Sorry. Didn’t mean….”

“I know. Yeah.”

“He needs a haircut.”

“He sure does.”

“How’d your drive with him go?”

“I don’t think he’s impressed with our little Podunk place.”

“He might like seeing Taos more. We gonna have time to take him there?” 

“I don’t know. It’d have to be Sunday if we do it.” 

This…. Ennis was a solid presence next to him, a dark outline without details when he knew every detail by heart: how his second toes were longer than his big toes, how he was ticklish to either side of his belly-button, the way his voice got low when he was shy, the look in his eyes when he was thinking about sex. What they were talking about wasn’t earth-shattering, wasn’t all that important. It was the kind of talk couples shared all the time as the day was drawing to a close. He’d got used to it over the last months and especially the last couple of weeks, and there was nothing more right. Jack tried to remember: had he ever been like this with Lureen, cozy in the dark, connecting after a day of being apart? He didn’t think so. Early on he’d given in to the call of his heart and lit out for the Siesta Motel in Wyoming, and that was all the chance for him and Lureen there’d ever been. 

Jack edged his arm out from between them and rested his fingers higher on Ennis than where Ennis’s hand was on him, closer to his dick. The back of his fingers pushed against the warm plumpness of his balls. 

After a while of them laying there, breathing, Ennis asked, “Did you like that red sauce stuff?”

“Sure, why?”

“I don’t know. It’s gonna be your fortieth. Should be something special.”

“It was fine.” 

“There wasn’t any card. I know you care about cards. You got me two.” 

“He’s seventeen years old and without his mom. That he remembered at all is more than I expected.”

“That’s so. Good that he remembered.” 

“Real good.” 

“How were things at the feedlot today?” Ennis asked. 

Not like the day before, when weirdness had happened with Hugo and envelopes that he wasn’t telling Ennis about. “Same old stuff. Corliss showed for an hour and then left before noon. There’s seventy-five head in the sick pen, most we’ve ever had, and James is worried about that.” No stray, frightened Mexican was hiding out in the stable, though.

“No wonder they get sick, the way the stock’s all shoved together.”

He already knew how Ennis disapproved of that, and the way the horses were kept. “How were things at the ranch?” 

“You know how I said I ain’t seen much of Tag lately cause of his football practice? He showed today anyway and helped out. Maybe he got a day off. But he sure was spitting mad about something. He almost brushed poor Delilah up against the wall, he was going at her so hard.”

“I’m thinking of going at you hard.” Jack lifted his hand and put his cupped palm over the softness between his fella’s legs. That softness showed Ennis wasn’t thinking in the same direction. “Are we going to do anything?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Bobby’s going to be here three nights. I don’t know that I want to go without for three nights.” 

“We used to go without…. I used to go without for a lot longer than that.” 

He wondered if Ennis thought he’d got sex all the time before, with a fuck around every corner, instead of how desperate he’d been. “It’s different now.” 

“Yeah,” Ennis said quietly. “Real different. But I don’t know….” 

Jack took his hand back, since it wasn’t doing any good, resigned pretty much to not having sex that night and thinking that he understood. Bobby here and…. “You’re thinking about tomorrow up at Red River, aren't you? 

“Nope. I’m not.”

“The rodeo won’t be a problem. We don’t need to even say hi to each other.”

“Like that’s gonna work.” Ennis sort of patted his thigh and then slide his hand away.

“It’ll be okay.” 

“Don’t you ever get tired of thinking like that?”

“I don’t all the time,” Jack said.

“You could have fooled me.” 

“I worried plenty over Bobby being here.” 

“So far so good, I’d say. Any way I can get you to shut up and go to sleep?”

“Just ask, grumpy.” Jack smiled in the dark. That sure was Ennis.

“I’m asking.” 

“Okay.” 

“Grumpy? Whatever happened to sweetheart?” 

“Go to sleep, kitten.”

“Damn.” 

*****


	3. Drenched

Highway 38 left the Moreno Valley a ways north of Eagle Nest and plunged into the heart of the Rocky Mountain range. The road followed a stream for almost twenty miles northwest through spectacular scenery that had Bobby craning his head and saying “Wow” over and over again. To either side the mountains came in close, sometimes hanging over the road like predators ready for pickings, their sheer sides dropping rocks along the side of the road, and sometimes retreating far enough away that a person could see the stark beauty of them whole, if you stuck your head out the window the way Bobby was doing. 

The day had started foggy with a chill in the air that reminded them autumn was only one day away and winter not all that distant. Now banks of gray-metal clouds were lined up one after another, streaking across the sky since daybreak with no break in the cover, stretching from the peaks at one side of the road to the peaks on the other side, like a canopy. The radio said no rain, and maybe even some sun later on, but it would stay cool. A flannel shirt and his second best jacket were on Jack’s back, because he’d lent his regular jacket to Bobby. The boy was used to ninety degrees through October and hadn’t come prepared. 

Up ahead was Red River, a town caught in a narrow valley more like a ravine, but they weren’t headed that far. A mile east of the city limits sign, the hills retreated far enough to reveal a flat stretch that went up and up in a gentle incline until the land disappeared in the rock. Where it was level, that was where the rodeo arena had been built years ago. Jack followed the sign that said _Rodeo This Way_ and turned right down a rutted dirt road. Bobby leaned forward and peered through the windshield as they got closer, checking out the pens in the back, the chutes and gates and ring in the middle, the stands on either side, and the protection of slanted tin roofs over the audience. This was a small-town rodeo, one of those where Jack had kept throwing his damnfool leg over bulls. Eighteen years ago the last time; sometimes it seemed more like a hundred years, so much of his life had changed.

Jack followed a kid’s waving arm that sent the F-150 down a bumpy path to where people were parking. It didn’t seem like the suddenly cooler weather had kept anybody home. There were plenty of trucks and cars and trailers too, down the way, with a line of people walking across the grass to the arena. The first rodeo session was due to start soon, at eleven, with the second at four that afternoon, and the whole time the fair would be going on. From the looks of a small army of booths set up to the west of the arena, every person living in northern New Mexico was trying to sell something: food, arts and crafts, a chance to win a stuffed animal, the latest western fringe on a snap-button shirt, the best saddle money could buy. And a chance to fatten your cattle at a feedlot. 

Jack pulled into a parking place and hoped that Bobby would find something to keep himself occupied . They’d be here the whole day, and Jack couldn’t judge the little rodeo by high standards. These once-a-year operations that only lasted a day weren’t like some of the bigger circuit rodeos. Most likely the stock would be from around the area and not owned by a professional contractor, and all the contestants would be local men, mainly young men except in the roping category. and of course young women in the barrel racing. Lureen never would let him forget those racers. The organizers would do their best, but when people helped out at these things once a year, you couldn’t expect anything expert. 

“Do you miss it?” Bobby asked as Jack pulled on the emergency brake.

Jack shook his head. “You mean the rodeo? Nah. Maybe a little.” 

“Did you quit because I was born? Or did Mom make you?”

“I quit because I wanted to be able to walk when I was forty. You get mighty busted up riding bulls. Broncs too.” A young man’s pride had driven him to it -- and he’d understood later on that there was some appeal to the mostly male club that a rodeo was -- but the reality of broken bones and the fact that he wasn’t all that good at it had driven him away. He hadn’t even gone to the local Childress rodeo all that much over the years. 

Jack got out of the truck onto the packed-down surface of the lot. “Rodeo starts in fifteen minutes. I want to find the feedlot booth first, let Andy know I’m here, and then I can watch maybe a bit of the bareback riding before I -- ”

“Jack! Hey, Jack!” 

A woman’s voice interrupted him, the breeze catching and magnifying her calling from a few trucks away. He turned and saw some kids and a dumpy, middle-aged woman with short hair come walking toward him. She was smiling fit to split her round face. In that second, he figured that any plans Ennis might’ve had for the two of them to keep a low profile were blown away by the strong west wind. 

“Hello, Betty Jo, how’re you doing?” He’d only met her that once, and as he touched his hat to her he thought of the frozen venison still untouched in their freezer. It was a shame that Ennis’s pride was putting all that deer meat to waste.

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s good to see you. Are you here to watch the rodeo?” 

“I've got duty in one of the booths for my job too. This is my son, Bobby Twist. Bobby, this is Mrs. Buckminster. Ennis is the foreman at her ranch.” 

“Nice to meet you, Bobby,” she said, showing nothing but friendliness, and maybe a little surprise that here was a son of his, but that was okay with Jack. 

Bobby nodded to her and said, “Hello, ma’am,” and then Jack asked, “And I’m guessing these are your sons?”

He didn’t need introductions, he could tell who was who. Davey was sucking his thumb, holding his mom’s hand and looking up at Jack with big eyes a little bulgy, in that way that kids who were retarded had. Tag was slouched behind the others, his head turned away and his broad shoulders slumped, making it obvious he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. The other one, a good-looking boy younger than Bobby by a couple of years but with almost as much hair, must be Matt. 

“Boys, this is Mister Twist, he’s a friend of Ennis’s. Is ... is Bobby staying with you now, Jack?” Betty Jo asked. They all started to walk toward the waving flags and the music. 

“Just for the weekend,” Jack said. 

“I’m driving back to Texas on Monday,” Bobby said. 

That brought Tag’s head up. “You’ve got your own truck?”

“Not a truck, a Camaro Z28. It’s a 1982 V-eight.” 

“Cool. I don’t even have a truck, my folks won’t let me. They won’t let us do a lot of things.” Tag threw a glance at his mother that should have melted paint but seemed to bounce off her. 

“Maybe when you graduate. In the meantime don’t give Jack and Bobby the impression that we keep you chained to the ranch. You know you have use of our trucks a lot. When you’ve earned the trust.”

Jack wondered if the Buckminsters had caught the boy red-handed at something. He didn’t look like much of anything, just an ordinary kid short for his age, taking after his mother. Tag was walking next to Bobby now, and Jack heard him say, “Maybe I can show you around. We’ve been going to this thing for years, and it’s pretty lame if you don’t know where to look.” 

Betty Jo had heard too. “Terence Buckminster, you are grounded and don’t you forget it.”

“Ah, mom, come on. You can’t keep me tied to your apron all day. You should have left me home. Besides, I’m only trying to help Bobby.”

Jack thought that he could do without that sort of help, but he didn’t say it. 

“We’ll see,” Betty Jo said. 

“You know parents,” Tag said to Bobby. “I can’t wait until I can escape to college. Maybe I’ll see you around later.” 

They separated at the admission booth for the rodeo, with Jack and Bobby moving past the back of the long section of bleacher seats to get to where the fair was set up. The sweet smell of roasted, buttered corn hit Jack’s nose, and then a pink cloud of cotton candy blew by, what some complaining kid must have not held on to tight enough. The flags rippling in the steady breeze made a plastic sort of sound that didn’t sound right with the towering Sangre De Cristos all around them. 

He hauled out his wallet and pulled out a twenty. “Here, take this,” he said, shoving it into Bobby’s hand. “To feed yourself.” 

“Thanks. Hey, that little boy with Mrs. Buckminster. He’s retarded, right?”

“He’s got that Down’s Syndrome. Ennis has a sweet spot for him, says he’s a good kid. He takes Davey on rides after lunch. It gives Mrs. Buckminster a break from taking care of him.” 

That seemed to surprise Bobby. “He does?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty good with kids, I think. He talked a lot about his girls when they were growing up and missed them plenty after he got divorced.”

Bobby seemed to think this over, and Jack was struck by a sudden need to ask him, _So, what do you think of Ennis?_ But that would’ve been dumb in the extreme, not least because the boy had hardly had much to do with Ennis so far. 

“How does Ennis and that boy .... I mean, can he talk?” 

“Sure. Not like you or me, but some. At least that’s what Ennis says. Of course, he doesn’t have much room himself to say anything about talking.” 

Bobby sort of smiled at that, uncertainly. 

Jack took one of the programs being handed out at the entrance point. There was a diagram showing where things were, along with a schedule of what was happening through the day. The whole area where the fair was set up must’ve been used for the purpose for years on end. There wasn’t much grass left and the dirt was beaten down by thousands of feet passing by, with rocky outcroppings that showed now and then interrupting the neat rows of tables and booths. Some of the booths were fancy, with blue and green canvas walls. They passed by a long line of them selling clothes, and handmade jewelry, and jelly in jars. They headed toward the back where there was a petting zoo and even a small merry-go-round. Jack could hear the tinny song-playing of the thing as they went on, and he resigned himself to being driven crazy if he had to listen to that most of the afternoon. 

The booth he was aiming for turned out to be just a table with a blue plastic tablecloth put over it, along with the stacks of freebies that Andy and Jack had planned on and two of the presentation boards that Jack had worked on weeks ago for Kansas City set up on stands. The table was lopsided some, the way it was set up, but that couldn’t be helped with the way the land tilted up from the narrow valley floor to the mountains; Red River was lucky to have much clear space at all. A couple of the freebie balloons had been taped to the corners of the table, and they rolled around on their strings in the breeze. Andy was talking to some rancher with his hat pushed all the way back on his head, and Jack didn’t see any need to interrupt. He waved, Andy waved back without stopping whatever he was saying, and Jack turned back toward the rodeo. 

Bobby went in first as Jack paid admission; when he got inside he had to turn around at the foot of the stands and look to see where his son had got to. The bleachers were more than half full, which in his experience was a real good turnout. Somebody over the last year or two had painted everything dark green with white accents here and there, so it all had a pretty fresh look to it. He moved up a few steps, his eyes roving around, still looking for Bobby. 

There he was. Jack shook his head. He should’ve .... Bobby was headed for where Betty Jo was sitting with her kids. If he could have, Jack would’ve stopped him, because he didn’t see any sense in .... But why not? The boy didn’t know anybody else, and it would probably work out okay. But Ennis wouldn’t like it. Jack got himself started up the rest of the steps and over to the next section where they were. 

The parade that started every single rodeo that Jack had ever seen, that he himself had ridden in once upon a time, was finishing as he climbed. The announcer came on the P.A. system, and the sound of that distorted voice, first too loud, then too soft, never completely clear, brought Jack way, way back. 

“My dad used to ride the bulls,” Bobby was announcing as he sat himself down next to Tag. “He’s got belt buckles he won.” 

Yeah, all two of them, but Jack understood what was going on, Bobby pointing out what a manly cowboy his dad was. No chance that he was gay, right? The boy didn’t know Betty Jo was in on the truth of things, and Jack saw no need to fill him in. 

Betty Jo, with Davey in her lap, was in the row behind the boys; she scooted over along the bench to make room for Jack, and he didn’t have much choice but to sit next to her. “Really? I didn’t know that about you.” 

Jack could just imagine Ennis scooping Davey out of her hands for a ride, setting the kid up on the saddle and then turning to her and saying _Let me tell you all about Jack._ In truth, Betty Jo knew almost nothing about him. 

He smiled at her. “That was a long time ago. I haven’t ridden the bulls since I was twenty-three years old, but for a while that was all I did.” 

All three boys turned around to look at him, and Jack didn’t mind a bit, not with Bobby listening in. Bobby had heard all his stories, or all the ones he’d wanted to tell -- not the Jimbo story, not the having his nose smashed in a men’s room story, not the story of him thinking he’d seen Ennis in the crowd and having his blood run cold and then red hot, when of course he’d seen no such thing. But it wouldn’t hurt to remind the boy of the things his dad had done that he could think of as a man’s pursuits. 

“How old were you when you started?” Matt wanted to know. 

Jack scratched the side of his face. “You mean riding for real and not out in my daddy’s fields? Seventeen. I got lucky and rode the eight seconds the first time out, and I was dumb enough to think that was a sign of things to come.” 

“You didn’t just ride your local fair? And was it hard to learn?”

“I was on the circuit almost four years, traveling all over from Wyoming to Kansas to Texas.” He saw Tag and Matt react to that, the respect in their eyes. “As for learning, it’s a matter of strength, and balance, and knowing which way the bulls will spin, being able to anticipate that if you can. You've got to be prepared for them dropping their front end or going into a body roll. A lot of it’s instinct in the beginning. And then don’t forget about learning how to get off. That’s real important. You need to get clear from those horns.”

“All the bulls have their horns cut halfway down now,” Tag said, like a challenge. “They’re blunt. You can’t get gored like in the old days.” 

“Maybe not, but you can get stomped on. Or ... haven't you ever seen one of the riders get lifted up by a bull butting him? Or maybe a rodeo clown? Straight up into the air, and they go flying, without any horn involved. I knew somebody that happened to ... ” not a friend, because Jack hadn’t had friends on the rodeo circuit, though he’d known plenty of people, “ ... came down on his leg wrong and next thing you know the bone was sticking right through the skin.” He glanced over at Betty Jo. “Uh, sorry about that. Didn’t mean .... ” 

She was looking amused. “That’s okay. I’m a rancher’s daughter, Jack, married to a rancher, a rancher myself. And the mother of sons.” 

“But you can make good money on the rodeo circuit, can’t you?” Matt was still pushing. “You won belt buckles, but there’s money to win, right?”

“Some. A lot more now than when I was doing it, I bet. Haven’t you boys ever done any rodeoing?” He knew that a lot of ranch kids did. 

“Dad says when I’m sixteen,” Matt said. “But I’ve been practicing.” 

“You have not!” his mother protested.

“Sure I have. I’ve been going up on Delilah in the mornings. Dad’s been letting me. You know how she’s got a mind of her own. She’s almost as good as a bucking bronc.” 

Betty Jo had a look that said she’d have something to say to her husband about that. 

Matt went on, telling Jack, “The Natural won’t ever be able to ride except up in front of one of us, but -- ”

“Matt,” his mom said severely, “his name is Davey.” 

“Right. Like I was saying, The Natural, I mean Davey can’t ride, but I don’t know why Tag isn’t even interested. He plays football instead. Or,” he glanced at his brother, “he used to play football, anyway.” 

Tag was practicing his looks-that-killed this day, because now he sent Matt one. But Bobby didn’t notice, and instead he asked, “Dad, tell them about riding Chili Pepper.” 

“Oh, they don’t want to hear my old tales.” 

But Matt’s face said differently, and after all Bobby had asked. So after letting himself get persuaded some more, Jack launched into the story of how he’d been bucked off by the meanest bull on the circuit and been stomped on bad enough that he’d been put out of commission for a month. With rodeo being the riders’ only source of cold cash, most of them got on top of the bulls or the horses even if their arms were hanging on by a whisper and a prayer. He hoped the boys knew that the bull had done him really wrong by keeping him out of the chutes for that long, and he’d been mad. He’d got a second chance the very next time out, getting the bull again in the random draw, and he’d been so dumb and so ornery that he’d bet ten dollars that he’d ride the son-of-a-gun, money he couldn’t afford to lose. That hadn’t ended in the best of ways, him getting hung up on the bull rope, hanging off the side of the animal and flopping all over the place, being dragged halfway down the arena before the rodeo clowns got him pulled loose. 

But then, finally, more than a year later, in front of the prettiest little gal in Childress, Texas, he’d got the best of the beast. He’d hung on for all he was worth, completely sideways for the last two seconds, feeling sure that his arm would get pulled out of the socket, with the crowd hooting and hollering. He didn’t hit ground until after the buzzer sounded. 

“And that was one of the buckles I won, for riding Chili Pepper.” In his rodeoing career he’d also won two concussions, bad knees that ached something fierce in the cold, a bad shoulder that acted about the same, one broken arm for sure, a broken leg that he’d always thought he had but he limped and rode through it, and more frustration than he could imagine until he’d found Ennis again. But he wasn’t going to tell that part of it. 

As the tale came pouring out, it seemed to Jack that something got unlocked inside of him. He realized that he hadn’t talked like this for a long time, years, maybe not since Bobby was much younger. Time had taken stuff away from him, and sadness had taken it, maybe bitterness, but now here was this part back again. He was able to feel the thrill of how it’d been, those incredibly short moments that had seemed to last a lifetime when he’d been suspended between the heaven and the earth, two seconds when he was hanging on for dear life and maybe for other things too. 

“Now that’s quite a story.” A heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder, and he twisted around to see that Floyd Aguilar must have come up during his telling and was sitting behind them. “Have you ever considered being a judge for one of these? Next year, maybe you’ll do that. They’re always looking for good men.” 

Nope, he’d not given that a thought, having more than enough on his mind during this last year that had come at him like a tornado. But ... next year. When maybe he’d be settled with Ennis for sure, when going to a rodeo in the community would be no big thing, not a cause for worry or fear, when maybe all the stuff going on at the feedlot would have disappeared, when life would be normal, natural, easy, and good. Maybe then rodeo judging would be a thing to do. 

Jack and Floyd shook hands. Floyd was telling them that his sister would be coming along soon when he was interrupted. 

“Daddy!” 

That was Davey talking, in a high-pitched way that sounded younger than he was. Jack followed his pointing finger and saw that two men riding horses were coming out of one of the gates at one end, into the arena now. He guessed the tall drink of water up on a chestnut was Rocky Buckminster, though he’d only seen him that one time through a truck’s windshield.

“And who else do you see out there, Davey?” Betty Jo asked, sort of curving her body around the boy in her lap, protective and showing mother-love. Her voice was a sing-song, the way a person talked to babies.

“Ennis!” Davey cried out loud, and he laughed so purely, it wasn’t possible not to laugh with him. 

“Aren’t you smart,” Jack said, and he chucked the boy under the chin. 

Ennis was up on the big bay, Samson, and as they cantered the length of the arena it seemed to Jack that he flowed right into the horse, or maybe the horse flowed into the man, and it was one of the finest sights he’d ever seen. Ennis’s long legs were suited to Samson’s size, way bigger than most of the compact quarter horse mixes or the horse Rocky was on; man and horse fit each other, Jack thought. Ennis rode his smooth stride like he’d been born in the saddle. Jack was conscious he couldn’t look too long, or too fondly, but there was something about seeing Ennis up on a horse. Among other things, it made him think that was his natural place of being. 

From up in the stands, Jack couldn’t see Ennis clearly, but he seemed okay, nothing shouting out how uncomfortable he might be feeling. He didn’t look up, though Jack had told him that he’d be there in the beginning, and he hoped to see most of the second session in the late afternoon. Ennis kept his eyes forward and set Samson toward the center of the ring, bringing him to a quick stop with a quiet word and a touch on the reins that Jack admired; there wasn’t every cowboy that could do that, with many of them sawing back on the bit enough to ruin a horse’s mouth. 

Most rodeos that Jack had been to had one thing in common: there was no time wasted, with the action fast and furious. No sooner were the two hazers in place than the announcer let the audience know the first contestant for bareback bronc riding was in chute number four, on top of the horse Topsy-Turvy, and he hoped they would put their hands together for this cowboy who hailed from Santa Fe. 

It was mighty fine, watching. Jack knew he was smiling. Let everybody think it was because he was remembering his own rodeoing days, but it was watching Ennis in the ring. How’d he get good at this when he’d never done it before? Jack guessed it was working on the range the way he’d done for years, all sorts of skills needed for that coming together in the arena. After all, that’s how rodeo had come to be, showing off what the cowboys did most every day. It didn’t hurt that Ennis was so good in the saddle either. 

The second bronc was a rangy black horse that was mad at the world and took it out on his rider, who lasted a whole three seconds. Then Shadow took off like a Thoroughbred at the track toward the far end, with Rocky pounding after him but way behind. Ennis stayed where he was, timing it, waiting for the bronc to turn and come back his way. He wheeled Samson around on his back legs like he was a prize cutting horse at exactly the right moment, then as the bronc raced by him, close enough to Samson that they nearly grazed against each other, Ennis reached out and yanked at the flank strap, pulling it free just like the hazers were supposed to do. Samson dropped behind Shadow, who was loping easily now that the irritating strap was gone, and followed to make sure he went through the open gate to the back pens. 

The whole thing hadn’t lasted more than six or seven heartbeats, but Jack knew good work when he saw it, good cowboy-work. Ennis brought Samson down to a trot and, calm like this was something he did all the time, went back to the center where Rocky was, ready for the next contestant. Jack would’ve loved to put his hands together and applaud, but that would’ve been calling attention to a man who wanted anything but that, so he didn’t. 

Jack noticed as the event went on that it was Rocky who rode up next to the riders when they’d gone their eight seconds and were holding on for dear life. Those times, the hazer’s job was to pull the rider off the horse in mid-gallop, with the contestant grabbing hold of whatever solid thing they could, most often ending up with their arms around Rocky’s waist and then dropping to solid ground. Jack wondered if Rocky and Ennis had talked about that, who was going to do what, or if Rocky was putting himself in that role without saying anything. 

The bareback bronc riding, which was only the first event of many, was almost over when he checked his watch and knew he had to go relieve Andy. He said bye to Betty Jo, told her that her husband was doing a good job, that she had fine children, and that if Matt ever wanted tips on bull riding, he’d be happy to pass on what he knew. She beamed like the sun and said, “Oh, thank you so much, maybe we’ll take you up on that.” 

“Bobby, you coming along with me?”’

Bobby wanted to stay for at least a while. “I know where you are, Dad. I’ll check in later. You get off, what, at four?” 

It wasn’t like his son needed to have his hand held; if he was old enough to drive by himself from Texas to New Mexico, he sure didn’t need to stick by Jack’s side at a county fair. He said, “Okay,” but then Betty Jo caught his eye and nodded, and he figured he had another parent on his side, whether he’d looked for that support or not. 

A big roar went up as he left the arena, which meant either somebody had held on for eight seconds in a spectacular way or somebody was hurt bad, and he was glad his own son was fixed on marching band and college instead of a sport where it was so easy to get your skull stove in. Bobby hadn’t shown much interest in rodeoing since he’d got past the little-boy stage. 

When Jack walked through the booths at the fair, it was mainly deserted, with most customers at the rodeo. It was warmer, and the wind had died down, with all traces of the morning fog gone even from the shoulders of the hills. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his black corduroy jacket and pushed a finger into the hole that was on the right side, into the lining. One of the ladies selling Country Crafted Kitchenware called out “hi” to him, maybe thinking he was a customer, and he said “hi” right back. All of a sudden it was a great day. 

Andy was waiting for him when he made it to the Tulip table, sitting back on one of the two folding chairs. He was bundled up in a brown sports jacket with a white shirt and brown sweater under it. Next to them was a veterinarian’s table, as ordinary as theirs was, with a sign saying the doctor would be back around three. On the other side was a dip in the land, where water must drain during the spring melt season. There were plenty of jagged rocks showing the course of the stream, which meant the next set-up, the ski resort trying to sell lift tickets in advance of the season, was a distance away. 

“How’s it going?” Jack asked Andy. “We get any good sales leads?”

“Only one. I’ve got his name and number there on the pad.” 

Andy told him how much of the free stuff he’d given out, and how there’d just been three ranchers stop by wanting information, and how the two posters on the stands kept falling over. “I’m going to get myself a soft drink. Do you want one?”

Andy wouldn’t take Jack’s money, so Jack let him go and sat down by himself, with the not-so-tuneful playing of the merry-go-round coming to him. Four hours of this. He told himself it was to keep living close to where they had jobs, where they were comfortable. The chair shifted back and forth with every move he made, and he began to amuse himself by rocking in time to the music. Or he lifted his eyes to the northern mountains in front of him and wondered what their names were. They were far enough away from Eagle Nest that the peaks were different, but they were still part of the same range that surrounded them at home. Sort of like relatives a person hadn’t met yet, Jack thought, people who would probably be okay but might turn out to be pricks. 

When Andy came back with Cokes -- Jack had known better than to ask him to get a beer -- he didn’t leave but sat down next to Jack behind the table. 

“I thought you wanted to see the rodeo?”

“I’m waiting for Carolyn and Heidi so we can go together.”

Some men might call Andy pussy-whipped, he supposed, the way the man let his wife dress him for work, and how he was always doing things with the family and not any stuff with men friends, but Jack didn’t judge Andy that way. He could see that it wasn’t some fake front, like it’d been with him, but done sincerely. If this was the way his young boss wanted to live, and it suited him, then Jack thought that was good for him. 

It was peculiar, how he got along with Andy. With the age difference, thirteen years, Jack had thought when he first was hired that they might have problems. Then when Andy’s casual talk had made clear how important the church was in his life, how he was a husband and a father and a God-fearing church-going man in that order, Jack had expected that there would be even less chance there’d be any connection between them. But it hadn’t worked out that way at all. He liked Andy, and he thought Andy liked him, and it was good to have a friend at work. Sort of a friend. Not like how he was with James Perez. Him and James, they were friendly without being friends. James was older than him by more than Andy was younger than him, and that seemed to be a problem. Or something else was the problem. Jack wasn’t sure what, because sometimes it seemed they got on, and then other times they didn’t.

Jack glanced over at Andy, who was perched forward with his back straight like always, his elbows on the table and frowning at nothing in particular. Being here with Andy was something like sitting with Bobby had been the night before, real comfortable. But days at the feedlot hadn’t been that comfortable lately, with him trying to turn his eyes the other way when he didn’t even know for sure what was going on. Maybe Andy knew. Maybe .... 

“Have you noticed anything strange at work lately?” 

That seemed to interrupt whatever it was Andy had been thinking on so deeply. “Strange?” Andy looked at him with wary eyes. “What do you mean?”

But Jack didn’t want to give anything away. Besides, saying it would mean the two of them should deal with it in some way, even if that was ignoring things together. He wished he hadn’t asked the question. He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Corliss isn’t spending nearly as much time at the place as he used to.” 

“I don’t think that’s strange. He’s got the right. I don’t believe the business has suffered from his absence, do you?”

Jack considered the Coke he was holding low between his knees. “I guess not.” 

Music from the rodeo drifted to them; most decent-sized rodeos had live music for every rope or ride and the times in-between. Lots of patriotic songs were always played, but it seemed this one had it recorded. 

“Jack?”

He looked at Andy because of the way his name was said, not ordinary, maybe even quavery. “What?”

Andy looked down at his fingers like they held the secrets to everything. He kept his head down long enough for Jack to start reaching for something else to say, and then he finally looked up with decision. 

“I ... I don’t find this easy, Jack. I’m not one of those who likes to interfere in another man’s business. But it’s my duty as a Christian to talk to you about this. Maybe I’m way off track, and I apologize to you if I am. I wouldn’t insult you for the world, so please don’t .... It seems from what I’ve seen the last months .... ” 

He fidgeted with a paper napkin, moving it soundlessly against the table back and forth. Jack was frozen in place, not believing he was going to hear what he damn well knew was coming next. 

It came out of Andy in a rush, and he looked scared to death but determined at the same time as he lifted his head and said it. 

“You’re a homosexual, aren’t you?” 

There went ... everything. 

His job. Their house. It wasn’t right but that was where him and Ennis were learning to put their lives together and be happy. The sliver of their forest with the treehouse, the deer that moved through it silently, and out back the limbs where the vultures roosted. The mountains. The wide reach of the green Moreno Valley that wasn’t wide enough for men like him and Ennis. _Oh, Christ, Ennis, I’ve fucked it up for both of us._

He couldn’t sit there forever without moving. He forced himself to meet Andy’s anxious eyes. 

“Yes,” he said, but his voice cracked, and he hated himself for that. He tried again, better. “Yes.” What else could he say? Andy wouldn’t have asked if he wasn’t pretty damn sure.

Andy looked away like sharing a gaze would contaminate him, and that hurt. “I .... I .... ” He wasn’t having any more success talking than Jack’d had. They sat there in excruciating silence, Jack thinking how Corliss was going to either crucify him or run him out of the state, no question. 

Then Jack forced out, “You said on the plane from Kansas City, remember? That you didn’t know any. But you do. Me.” 

That brought an uncomfortable smile out of Andy. He unbuttoned his sports coat and laid his hands flat on either side of the sweating plastic cup. “I guess you’re right. You’re the first one.” 

Jack thought of the men he’d come across, leading secret, double lives the same way he’d been, men even in rodeos like the one going on now. He sent his gaze across the sweep of the field where lots of people were out having a good time. There was him, and there was Ennis, but he’d bet anything there were others right here. 

“Jack, do you read your Bible?”

Real anger rose up in him. Why the fuck should he read that ancient piece of horseshit, when it told that men like him weren’t worth the love that Jesus preached? When people like Andy used the Bible’s words to hate him and Ennis, who’d tried not to do wrong but kept getting tripped up just because of who they were? 

“I mean, I know you aren’t a church-goer, but you are familiar with the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, aren’t you?”

It was easy to catch his rage and not let it out; he was used to not letting on, not showing himself except at certain times. “The Bible’s got nothing to do with me.” 

“But it does,” Andy said, as earnestly as a teenager not knowing the truth of how hard life was. “Our Lord offers forgiveness and love. You don’t have to stay as you are. You can change, you can move on in the way Jesus teaches, and you will find eternal reward.”

The man really believed it, Jack could see. He shook his head. “Who do you think made me like this?”

“God makes people who murder too, but they can stop themselves so they don’t do it again. You can stop doing this, Jack.” 

His boss didn’t even know what he was saying or how it hurt, comparing Jack and the love he had for another man to murder. Jack turned so he was facing Andy, grateful at least that there wasn’t anybody else around, and this conversation that was changing his whole life was taking place where his humiliation wasn’t on display for everybody. God, Bobby .... 

“Do you think I haven’t tried to change? What do you think marrying Lureen was all about? But this is the way it is, and no amount of trying to pretend it isn’t will make a difference. You don’t know anything about it, Andy, so I think you should just shut up. You’ve had your say.” 

Andy’s hand went out to him and Jack couldn’t help but look at it, manicured nails, white skin, uncallused: he might talk about wanting to work with cattle, but Andy O’Donnell was a far cry from a cowboy. “Jack, please .... ”

“Please what?” Jack asked bitterly. He’d thought he had a friend. 

“We know the path that Jesus wants us on, not what you’re .... I’m trying not to judge, but I cannot condone what you’re doing, using company time to have assignations with men when you should have been attending sessions of the -- ”

So that’s where he’d gone wrong. “Whoa,” Jack interrupted. “Wait a minute. There was nothing going on at that convention.”

Andy looked pained. “Please don’t make it worse by denying the truth. I saw .... When I joined you for breakfast that Saturday, I didn’t come to the table right away, because I saw you with that man. Gary, I think his name was.” Andy’s mouth pursed up like he’d tasted something sour. “The way he touched your hand, the way he looked at you, I’ll honestly tell you that it shocked me, really shocked me. I stopped right in the middle of the restaurant, and the waitress had to ask me to move.”

Jack propped his elbows on the table and dropped his face in his hands. And this self-righteous youngster had stayed quiet for the weeks after, until now? 

“I’d had my suspicions before, but that confirmed them.”

“That didn’t mean anything, because Gary’s just a friend. I’ve done my best for the feedlot, and I ... But it doesn’t matter, there’s no use explaining. I’ll be gone, and you won’t have to worry.” 

“Gone?”

He lifted his head again. “We’re not going to stay around to get kicked or worse -- ” he thought of the gun show, all the men who were at the shooting range when he’d gone there with James. “We’ll leave.” 

“No! No, you don’t understand,” Andy said, seriously upset. “You mean you think .... No, that’s not it. Jack, I’m trying to save your immortal soul, not have you fired.”

It took more than a few seconds for that to sink in, because Jack was already down the road of trying to find a way to make sure Ennis stayed with him, explaining to Bobby why they’d moved, thinking where else they could go .... “What? You know how Corliss feels about men like me.”

“I’m not Corliss,” Andy said simply.

“You mean you’re not going to .... ”

“Just because I know what you are doesn’t mean anyone else needs to. I intend to keep this to myself, because if this gets out at the feedlot, you’re fired. I’m not going to deprive a man of his livelihood, even a man like .... ” He stopped. 

Jack looked a lot more closely at Andy, who held power over him now in more ways than at the workplace. The last time he’d been found out, at the Ford dealership in Amarillo because the security tape had caught him and Ennis kissing through the window of a truck, he’d been sent off with severance, and he’d expected a lot worse here. But Andy was a different kind of man. Maybe because he was younger? University educated? Or maybe the lessons of the Bible he was trying to hand over to Jack, the parts about love and acceptance, had made a deeper impression on him than even he knew. There was more to Andy than Jack had thought, to not go ahead with the knee-jerk reaction that most other straight men Jack had encountered would give in the same situation. 

“You mean it?”

“I do mean it.”

“You’re not going to spread this around?”

“No, I won’t.”

Relief didn’t come close to covering how that made him feel. He hadn’t lost what he’d come to want, to need. Jack put out his hand and Andy took it. “Thanks. That means a whole lot to me. Guess we won’t have to move in the dead of night after all.”

“Surely you don’t mean that. You’re joking.”

Jack thought bleakly of an image he’d never even seen but that lingered in the back of his mind: Earl dragged to death with his dick pulled off. He shook his head. That was Ennis’s ghost, not his. Then why his sudden fear? “I don’t think,” he said slowly, “I’d like to be around if Corliss finds out. He wouldn’t like to think I’d made a fool of him.” 

Andy looked uncertain, as if he wanted to defend a fellow member of the Living Water Baptist Church but knew enough not to. 

“How’d you figure it out?” 

“I’m not sure. Does it matter? You’d talked about your friend Ennis as if he wasn’t anywhere near, but then when we met you at the animal preserve, there he was. Then when your ex-wife said she’d come to see you and Ennis, that got me thinking. I remembered how adamant you were about not wanting to join the divorce group at church, not wanting to date women. It wasn’t natural. One thing led to another in my mind.

“I ... I assumed you and your friend Ennis were ... I don’t know, together somehow. That was shocking, but I couldn’t be sure. And then in San Antonio, you and your friend Gary, how you were ... touching. That was hard to miss. I realized that you were behaving improperly with this other man, typical homosexual wanton behavior, promiscuous, inviting this new disease, the gay cancer, and clearly against what the Bible teaches .... I had to speak to you.”

Jack swallowed his anger a second time. Andy hadn’t lived his life, wasn’t in his body, and wasn’t faced with choices that weren’t any of them good. A man did what he had to do, and fuck it with Andy preaching against typical homosexual wanton behavior. All the gay men he’d met over the years, they’d made their choices because of the way things had been handed down to them. Damnit, if they couldn’t make babies with each other, why should they settle down? Unless they wanted to, unless they needed to, unless they were Jack Twist. He wasn’t going to judge any of them, and he resented like hell that this pipsqueak Bible-thumper was. 

This Bible-thumper who knew he was gay and wasn’t going to tell. Who found it hard to talk to Jack about this but was doing it anyway because of his notion of friendship. Who only wanted to save his soul that Jack wasn’t even sure existed, not anybody’s souls. In the end, who was speaking out of kindness. It was, after all, only Andy here. 

Jack spread his hands and plowed into the truth. “You can talk to me all you want, you can read to me from the Bible all day, but that won’t change who I am or how I want to live. I’m not going to lay out my life for you, but what you saw with Gary wasn’t what you thought. I live with .... ” He paused. Ennis was right here on these grounds. He’d crawl into a hole if he was aware Andy knew about the two of them, widening the tiny circle that did. But it wasn’t any use. Andy was smarter than Jack had thought, and he’d caught on. Besides, Jack wasn’t so dumb himself that he wouldn’t use the fidelity card when dealing with a Baptist. “I live with Ennis, you’ve got to know, and he’s it for me. Just him and me, nobody else.” 

“But you’ve got to know it’s wrong. It’s sinful. Why would you court the promise of everlasting damnation if -- ”

“Andy,” Jack interrupted. “Not everybody believes the same.” 

“But those of us who do believe know we’ve got the truth, and we want to share it. Do you see that? I condemn what you do, but I don’t condemn you. I want to help you, Jack.”

“You’ve helped me by saying you aren’t going to destroy my life here in the valley. We came here to find some peace, some way to live quietly and together. I’ve known Ennis since 1963, Andy, and this is the first time we’ve been able to be together.” He felt like a creep, using the truth to play on Andy’s sympathy, but it seemed to Jack doing that would make him safer. 

“Since nineteen sixty .... ” 

The man sat back as a gust of wind came up, knocking down one of the posters. Jack got up and went downslope to where it’d flown away. He hadn’t heard anything but Andy’s voice since he’d started talking, although he guessed the crowd was still cheering at the rodeo and music was playing. There, he heard it now, _Stars and Stripes Forever_ coming from the arena, clashing with the merry-go-round’s song.

He went back to the table and took his time setting up the poster again, knowing that it’d be blown away again eventually. It was the same way with him, getting knocked down and picking himself up, over and over. 

He didn’t go back to sitting next to Andy but instead stood on the other side of the table. Nobody else would hear him. “We came looking for a place around here,” Jack said, “because I thought with Taos nearby it’d be safer for us here. Better.”

“Nineteen sixty-three?” Andy asked, looking up at him. 

Jack nodded. 

“That’s a long time.” 

“Imagine meeting your wife when you were nineteen, and the world not letting you be with her until twenty years later. Wanting to be with her all that time, trying to find a way to be together. It’s the same, Andy, no matter what your scripture tells you how we’re all that bad and different. That part’s the same.” 

Andy bit his lip. “You know I disagree with you.” 

“And I don’t see things your way either. But I’ve got to say, you’re a good man.” 

Andy looked over toward the vet’s table, where there were stacks of paper weighed down with rocks. The top pages were fluttering as they tried to escape. “I’d like to think I’m a saved man, because of my faith in my Lord Jesus Christ. As for good, well, that’s what I’m trying to be, and I hope you see that.” He looked up at Jack again. “I hope we’re still friends?”

“Yeah, we are. Are you going to keep trying to save my soul?”

His boss gave a small smile. “It’s what friends are for, at least the way I look at it.” 

Jack was about to say that he didn’t need favors like that. He’d follow up by asking Andy not to let Ennis know he knew, if they were to somehow cross paths, but he never said either because he caught Andy looking past him. A familiar father-look told who was behind him. 

“Hi, Daddy!” came a little girl voice. “Come quick so we can go see the rodeo.” Heidi ran up and then around the table, grabbing her father’s hand, a four-year-old in pigtails and the cutest pink corduroy overalls showing under a pink jacket.

“I’m sorry, Jack, I need to go.” 

“Sure thing, Andy,” Jack said evenly. “See you in a while. Enjoy the show.” 

He watched father and daughter -- an ordinary, normal father and an ordinary, normal daughter -- join Carolyn, who must not have been able to keep up with the energy of her little girl. She waved at Jack and he waved back, and then the little family disappeared behind the truck from the First Baptist Church of Angel Fire, which had a sign saying they were selling the best, homemade, hot-as-fire stuffed jalapenos. 

The plastic covering had blown over part of the table. Jack pushed it back where it belonged, and then he picked up the box of balloons that he’d bought when he was in Raton shopping for Bobby. He took out a few of different shapes and colors -- yellow, red, blue, purple, white, green, pink -- and put them to his lips one by one to blow them up. As each one got big, he attached a string and then taped it to the table, because the two that Andy had started with looked lonesome. He put some on the posters too. 

And all that time, he thought about how half an hour ago he’d just been some guy at the fair, but now he felt as conspicuous as one of these balloons getting loose and rising up into the air, caught by the wind, a few down below seeing it, kids pointing toward the sky, and then in the way of people everywhere, everybody looking up to see what was floating above their heads. Look at the balloon. Look at the homosexual. Look at Jack. 

He’d known he was different for a long time. It wasn’t like he wanted it that way, although he’d never felt it as keenly as Ennis did. He made the best of what was. Different from the main but ... not wrong. It didn’t matter what the Bible said or what the rest of the world said. Maybe, way back when, when he’d been in his twenties, he might’ve had some shame. But it had been a long time since that had started to change into resentment and a true belief that it wasn’t him that was dirty, sinful, and out of touch with the rest of the world, but it was the rest of the world that was out of touch with the way things were. 

If he put any more balloons on the feedlot table it really would rise up, and then people for sure would be pointing at him. He stopped and sat down instead, knowing that he’d escaped from something that could’ve been real bad. Talk about knee-jerk reactions, he’d just had one; he’d been preaching to Ennis forever about how they wouldn’t run into problems and how he shouldn’t be so fearful, but still he’d reacted the way he had .... Jack picked up his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and then put it back down again. He guessed he knew a lot better now how Ennis had felt when BJ and Rocky had figured them out, and when Ennis had feared he’d be sent packing looking for work elsewhere. Jack had made light of that reaction, he remembered, but it must’ve been gut-churning, especially for his fella who always feared the worst. He owed Ennis an apology, maybe.

Jack sat there for a while feeling small. He reminded himself that his shame for being gay had left him long ago. He told himself that what Andy said shouldn’t sting him because it wasn’t true and what the hell did he care? Except it did hurt, being thought of in such a bad way, same as a murderer in his friend’s eyes. Then he started thinking for some reason of his mama, who he hadn’t seen in a long time. He missed her. 

After a while some people came down his way, even before the rodeo was over with, and his attention was taken handing out the candy and the popcorn and the balloons and sometimes a flyer about the cattle feeding. Some rancher who knew how to make shapes with the balloons came by and attracted a group of kids while he worked his magic, and it was impossible to feel real low with that going on. Then with a blare of trumpets the rodeo let out, and after that Jack was kept busy for an hour or more. During that time he talked with purpose to two ranchers who gave him their names and numbers. He’d call on them the next week, because it seemed to him that now more than ever he had to prove his worth to the feedlot. He had to make sure that anybody like Andy who got a stray thought about him would turn away from it, knowing how important he was to keeping things going. Without a salesman bringing in the steers, there wouldn’t be any paychecks, and he was going to make sure everybody had that thought over the next little while. 

The people at his table ebbed and flowed, and it was during a down time that he saw Bobby coming toward him. With a jolt realized he hadn’t thought of his son at all for a while, and had about forgotten he was around. The boy came up to him with red cheeks and a cheery look that said he was having a real fine time. That might’ve been because he’d found somebody to hang around with. Tag was right beside him. 

“Hi, Dad. I’m just checking in to see if you need any help. Everything okay?” 

Nope, he didn’t need help, although he was tempted to say he did, in order to get Bobby away from the Buckminster boy. He didn’t know how Tag had managed to untie the apron string that Betty Jo had wanted to keep him on, but he wished it hadn’t happened. He looked even happier than Bobby did, with a light in his eyes that showed he was pleased to be ranging across the fair without his mom or his brothers. Bobby started telling him about a good calf-roping they’d seen, but then Tag took over and talked like a chittering magpie, fitting in every detail Jack could imagine, making him think the boy would make a good announcer on TV. 

Once he was able to get a word in edgewise, he sent the boys to get him something to eat. They came back with chopped beef barbecue, fried okra, an ear of roasted corn and another Coke -- he went without a beer again since they couldn’t buy while they were underage -- and then they took off into the crowd, headed Jack didn’t know where. He knew better than to tell Bobby to be careful, to be good. At least he was able to catch his tongue and not do that in front of Tag. Remembering his own ornery spirit at that age, he realized that was the best way to make sure of the opposite. 

He sat down and tackled the food. When he picked up the sandwich, it was so big that beef and sauce came out the sides, dripping onto the plastic plate and the okra. It was what Lureen used to call a two-fister. Whenever she’d said that, Jack always thought of the two dicks he’d run across that he could say the same thing about. Right there over the barbecue he chuckled, and then felt good that he still could, after the bombshell that Andy had laid on him. 

“Jack, sorry to interrupt you eating, but I wanted you to meet my sister, Maria Ramirez.” 

Floyd was there, and even though they’d not met often, Jack knew he got along great with the old Indian, or the old Mexican, whatever he was. Jack mopped at his mouth with a napkin and stood up with some warmth, and they went through the introductions. Floyd mainly looked Indian, with a broad, dark face and flat nose, but then again his name was Mexican, Aguilar. In English that meant .... Jack knew he should know what that meant, but Spanish wasn’t exactly his strong point.

The three of them talked for a while. Jack didn’t know if Maria had been given the heads up about him and Ennis or not, but he got the feeling that it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. She was a heavy-set woman with a real calm approach to life, it seemed, smiling every now and then at nothing in particular. She reminded Jack of his first-and-second grade school teacher, maybe the only woman he’d ever fallen in love with for real; Miss Thompson and Maria both had gray-streaked black hair worn in a braid all the way to the waist. 

Eventually Maria wanted to go see the rest of the fair with Floyd, and Jack went back to his sandwich. He was finishing up the corn when something made him look up. Coming down the pathway, over by the ski resort booth, he saw Ennis. Somebody passed in front of him, but when his view opened again, Jack saw that little Davey was walking beside him, holding on to his hand with trust. It didn’t seem that Ennis was looking for Jack. He probably didn’t even know where the feedlot table was, considering how he wouldn’t have taken a program from the ladies handing them out even if it’d been waved under his nose. He was looking toward where the merry-go-round and the petting zoo were, and it was easy to figure that was where Jack’s big, strong, hard-nosed cowboy was taking the little boy in his care. 

Then, in that weird way that things often worked, Ennis must’ve felt eyes on him. He looked over, all startled, and saw Jack. 

Jack smiled at Ennis, keeping it light and small, mindful of how they’d agreed to be careful. He was mindful even more of how Andy had uncovered things and how he didn’t want to give any more evidence of anything. Ennis touched his hat, and that was it. He’d be passing the table by, and considering, that was probably the best thing to do. 

Except Ennis couldn’t pass by. He was stopped not twenty feet from where Jack sat by the sight of an old man that Jack had met once but hardly recognized now. He was changed considerably, Mark O’Hara, the owner of the palomino mare Fancy. 

With the noise of the fair all around him, there was no way that Jack would be able to hear what was said. But he could see. The man had been old when Jack had seen him at the auction near Taos, but in the time since he’d gotten so he looked on death’s door. Jack figured that must be so. He was bent over, walking with a cane, and there was hardly anything left of him. The shape of his bones were apparent even through the long coat he wore. Walking slowly against the incline, O’Hara still wasn’t coming up on Ennis in any friendly way.

“Motherfucker,” Jack cursed under his breath.

Ennis just stood there, the boy’s hand in his, and when O’Hara started talking, he stood there some more. Jack couldn’t tell anything from his face, but right away his body swayed back as if it’d been hit. After a minute of O’Hara dishing it out and Ennis taking it, Ennis reached down, picked Davey up in his arms, and finally said something in return. O’Hara said something back sharply, and Ennis returned with words of his own that looked to Jack to have some heat in them. O’Hara paused and seemed to agree, and he reached out to pat Davey on the shoulder. Another minute of talk, with Ennis nodding twice, and then the old man walked away. Jack noted that there hadn’t been any handshakes on either side, and his heart sank. Shit. He knew that Ennis was braced for having Fancy taken away just because of him and Jack being together, but it was one thing fearing it was going to happen and another thing having it come down. Not to mention the way it was done; Jack figured his man had heard stuff hard for anybody to handle. But especially his Ennis. 

Fearful, Jack watched Ennis in the walkway. His jaw worked, Ennis’s way of dealing with a floodtide of emotion, and Jack wished two things: that he had the freedom to go over and say something, do something, anything that might make Ennis feel better somehow, and that he could run after the old man and knock him down into the dirt. 

Slowly, Ennis’s hand went up to the back of Davey’s head. He pressed the boy against his shoulder, and it was something precious, how the little one’s whole body molded itself to Ennis’s front, relaxed in total trust and comfort while he was being held by the man who’d might’ve just been told he was the scum of the earth. Jack watched while Davey’s thumb went into his mouth and he started sucking. 

Ennis stood there for a couple of seconds staring straight ahead, and then his gaze went down to his boots. The next second he looked over at the balloon-decorated table, and the second after that he surprised the hell out of Jack by striding over toward where he was sitting.

He had to cut across the stream of fair-goers, stopping to let some high school girl go in front of him, then doing the same for an old woman. When he got there, Jack stood up and figured it would be best to keep the table between them. That way, there would be nothing anybody could interpret the wrong way.

“Hey, Jack.”

“Hi, Ennis. Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I wanted you to meet this little guy here.” Ennis’s big hand was still cradling Davey’s head; he turned sideways so Davey and Jack could see each other. With an effort, Jack smiled at him. Davey stared back at him, unblinking. 

“I saw him up in the stands this morning, but we haven’t been formally introduced.” He reached out as if to shake hands, but the boy didn’t move.

“Davey,” Ennis said, “this here is my real good friend Jack Twist. Can you say hello to him?”

“It’s okay,” Jack told him when the boy didn’t respond. 

But Ennis wasn’t looking at him. His whole attention was on Davey. “You don’t got anything to be scared of with Jack. He’s okay. You want to say hi?”

Jack heard the sound of that thumb being sucked, but nothing else. 

“He doesn’t talk much,” Ennis told him. 

“He said two things this morning while we were watching the rodeo.” 

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. He said ‘Daddy’ and he said ‘Ennis.’ That was when the two of you first rode out into the ring.”

It was something, watching how Ennis took that, how it pleased him in a way he tried to hide. That brought a tenderness to Jack’s heart all the same. Ennis had wanted sons but he’d been given daughters instead, which Jack figured was a good thing because he sure was a good daddy to them. Ennis had never let himself get close to other families; he’d never had any feeling at all of what it might be like to be a boy’s daddy. Now, there were three Buckminster boys in his life, but it was the one who wasn’t right that called to him. 

“He does talk sometimes,” Ennis said gruffly. 

“I guess. Are you going to talk to me? I saw you and O’Hara. I guess he .... ” Jack trailed off, not wanting to be the one to say it out loud.

There wasn’t any mistaking how glum Ennis looked then. “Yeah, he took Fancy away.”

“That just isn’t right. You’ve done so good by that horse, he won’t even recognize her.” 

“Yeah, well, she’s about trained up anyway. I would have told him in a week or two to come get her. It doesn’t matter.” 

Sure it did, because Jack doubted that O’Hara and Ennis’d had a real polite talk. “You going to tell me more later?” 

“There ain’t nothing more to tell, you heard it all. Saw it all.” 

“Hi,” came a shy voice between them. 

Startled, Jack looked down at Davey, who he’d pretty much forgotten about. “Well, hi yourself, little man,” he said. He smiled and reached to take the boy’s hand. Davey didn’t exactly shake back, but he didn’t pull away either. 

Ennis was smiling too, and Jack could’ve kissed the little boy for making that happen. 

“We better get going,” Ennis said, shifting Davey in his arms more to the side. “I hear there’s a tiger cub from that animal place down at the petting zoo, real young, and I promised I’d show Davey before I gotta go back to the arena.” 

“Has it been okay, working with Rocky today?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Wait a minute, before you go .... Hey, Davey, do you like balloons?” 

“Balloon!” Davey crowed out loud, and his feet that were wrapped around Ennis’s waist kicked so he rode higher.

“I guess you do. Let me blow one up special for you.”

He asked what color Davey wanted but it was Ennis who picked out the blue one. He walked away with Davey looking over Ennis’s shoulder at Jack, the string of the balloon clutched in his hand. That sight was worth the day at the feedlot table, right there, and Jack wished that O’Hara had seen it and could understand the kind of man Ennis was, not only fine with horses but fine, period. Once he was given a chance. Once he was able to push past his fear and his pent up anger. But Jack figured O’Hara would look and still not see what was in front of his nose. Most people were like that with Ennis. 

All around, the fair was going in full swing. With the rodeo set to go again at four, there was some feeling that folks were getting their fun and their shopping in now. A minute after Ennis left, two ranchers came up to Jack, cousins with adjacent spreads on the Colorado border, and he knew that he had them hooked by the time they left. This was turning out to be a great sales day even if other things weren’t good. 

Soon after the cousins were gone, Bobby and Tag showed up again, though it was hard to see Bobby because he was hiding behind an enormous stuffed animal, a green dragon with gold wings. He’d won the thing at one of the games on the mini-midway, he said, and didn’t want to be hauling it all over the place. He asked if he could store it behind the table. 

Jack teased him about what he was going to do with it, and his son told him, seriously as could be, that girls really liked it when they got stuffed animals. He’d tell Sandy the dragon had sat in the front seat next to him all the way back to Texas. “You understand women so well, you should give a clinic,” Jack said, and Bobby said he was thinking of becoming a psychologist, and maybe he would. Tag said, “You’re kidding, that’s great,” and the two boys shared a high five. 

The boys were tearing open a couple of plastic bags that Jack had to protect the animal when Andy came into view, way earlier than he was scheduled to show. Another guy was with him, tall and looking like a gray-haired movie star. They were talking fast and furious all the way up to the table. Jack told himself that it was okay, there wasn’t anything here to worry about, but he was more than a little uneasy, especially with Bobby right there behind him. 

“Jack,” Andy said, “I’d like you to meet George Hogan, my pastor at Living Water Baptist. George, this is Jack Twist, the man I told you about.”

Goddamnit! He thought he’d made things clear! Andy was going to push this thing about saving his soul, and Jack was not going to let that happen. He opened his mouth but before he could say anything the pastor was pumping his hand and Andy, who must’ve seen how he felt, jumped in. 

“Jack, George here is on the fair committee, and they have a problem. I told him that you might be able to help them out.” 

That brought him up short. What? 

“Pleased to meet you, Jack. Andy here tells me you and he work together, and that you might make a good auctioneer.” 

Jack blinked and felt like he was watching a movie going by too fast to follow. “Howdy, Reverend. What was that you said?”

It turned out that one of the events on the schedule, printed on the program that Jack had stuffed in his jacket pocket, was an auction. “Just a short one, with proceeds going to charity,” Hogan said, but their auctioneer had just sent word he couldn’t make it, and they were in a bind. “Andy said that with your background and your ability in sales, you might make a good substitute.”

“I’ve never done anything like that,” Jack said. “I don’t think I could come close to sounding like an auctioneer.”

Hogan waved his hand. “That’s all right, we don’t expect you to, but we do need somebody to take charge and lead the proceedings. Would you be willing to help out?”

“When is it?” 

“It’s scheduled for three-thirty to four-thirty, but I don’t think it will last that long.”

Jack sent a look to Andy, who was his boss, after all. “You want me to do this? You’ll have to take over here right now.” 

“If you don’t mind. George was telling me about the committee’s problem, and I thought of you right away. I think you’re a natural for it. It can’t do the feedlot any harm either, to be seen volunteering like this. Just let the buyers know where you’re from and who you’re representing.” 

“Well .... ” There didn’t seem any way to say no. The boys were looking and knew what was going on. Ennis was going to shit a brick, Jack in the limelight calling for bids from a crowd of stockmen, but .... This was a message from Andy, and Jack got it, that Andy still thought highly enough of him to recommend him and had no second thoughts about him being in public with the feedlot’s name on him. 

And .... He could do this, couldn’t he? He sort of thought he could, and he didn’t mind trying. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do my best.” 

“Great,” the pastor said, and he patted Jack’s arm in the way some men of the cloth seemed to have, too friendly by half to Jack’s thinking, but probably with no harm behind it. “We’re using the open space next to the parking lot, and all the equipment’s already there. The way we’ve worked it in the past is that you lead the bidders from one piece to another -- ”

“Wait a minute,” Jack stopped him. “Equipment? I thought we were talking stock.”

“You mean cattle? No, this is an equipment auction.”

“It’s why I thought you’d be good for it,” Andy put in. “Didn’t you use to sell farm equipment? I remember that from seeing your job application.”

Fifteen minutes later George, as the pastor insisted he be called, was Jack’s best-friend-of-the-moment, because he knew all the ins and outs of what was going on. They walked briskly to where the auction items had been dropped off. There were riding mowers, balers, a pull-type harvester, rotary cutters, there were even two compact backhoes, with plenty of other machines scattered all around, all well-used but in certified working condition. He was surprised to see two good-looking Honda ATVs that weren’t even two years old, and surprised even more how he felt a weird sort of pang to be back where he’d labored for years for L.D. Jack was familiar with all this equipment, he knew how it ran, how it was best used, what parts most often broke down, how much fuel it took to run each piece. None of that knowledge, hard-gained over the seventeen years of his marriage, was any use to him, though. Except right now, in this auction. 

George told him they had a lot more to auction off than most years, because fully half of what was there had been donated by the widow of Fritz Perchusky. He’d been a retired police officer who’d rented out small equipment from his backyard in Ute Park. He’d made a good living of it, George claimed, but his widow was moving to Denver. She’d donated whatever inventory she hadn’t been able to sell. That was good for the auction, but it sure was a shame to see a business die like that, George said, and not good for the local economy.

“How come you aren’t doing the auctioning?” Jack felt free enough to ask as they stopped by a harvester, the biggest machine on the lot. “Seems you being a reverend, you’ve got the word skills.”

But George was handling the money end of things, keeping track of the bids and the final pricing, then collecting the payment afterward and supervising the new owners going off with the right machine. Once he heard all that George was doing, Jack felt kind of small for trying to palm off the auction part on him too. 

Before he hardly knew which way was up, a small group of men had assembled. They were ranchers mostly, with some others just there to watch. George faded into the background with a clipboard and a pen, and Jack stood up on the bed of a trailer to introduce himself and explain the circumstances of why they wouldn’t be hearing a regular auction patter. 

Nobody cared about that once they got rolling. He didn’t let himself think about what he was doing, he just did it, trying his best to get the best price. It crossed his mind even as he talked to wonder why. He didn’t know what charity this was for. It could be the Society for the Advancement of Queer-Bashing, for all he knew. But there was something of pride in him with the reverend looking on, when Jack was sure that if he knew the truth of things he’d condemn Jack to fiery hell in front of everybody. Not like Andy, willing to hold back. Not _good_ like Andy. 

“And now we’ve got this Honda All Terrain Vehicle,” Jack said as they moved on, “or an ATV for those in the know. This one’s practically brand new, a 1982 Big Red with suspension and racks. These three wheels mean this baby will take you anywhere on your ranch you want to go. If you’re a hunter, you won’t ever go hunting without one after you’ve seen how deep into the terrain this Honda will take you, and then it’ll haul your kill out too. Who wants to start the bidding?” 

There was a lot of interest in the ATV. While Jack was fielding the bids, encouraging more, he caught a glimpse of Bobby in the back of the small crowd. Tag wasn’t there that he could see -- he hopped up on the side of the Honda to make sure even as he took the bid up another fifty dollars. He waved to Bobby as another guy said fifty dollars over that. Bobby waved back, somebody in front of him turned away, and there was Ennis with the little Buckminster boy clutching his hand. 

Jack dropped back down to the ground, stumbled so he had to put a hand out to catch himself, and laughed, saying to everybody that he had to watch his own big feet. He got back into the rhythm right away, but it felt good, that way in the back where he couldn’t see them now, his son and his man were standing side by side, listening to him do this thing that nobody, including Jack himself, knew that he could do. As the bidding stalled he wondered how Ennis had found out. By the time he said “Sold to the man in the green jacket” he’d figured that it was likely Bobby had come across Ennis and told him. How else? It was near rodeo time and Ennis was cutting it close to be here at all, but he was here. Hopefully not fuming and angry, but knowing that Jack hadn’t had a choice and no harm was going to come from this. 

“Over here we’ve got a 1975 backhoe, not in bad shape as you can see .... ” 

The curious part of the crowd cleared out once the rodeo started, leaving only the determined guys set on getting a deal. Jack wrapped up the last sale right before four-thirty. Like George had said, it was a short auction as far as such things went, but when Jack said _Sold!_ for the last time, he was left wondering how a real auctioneer kept the energy going for hours longer. This was no easy thing, what he’d just done. 

When Jack got over to the arena, the rodeo had been going for more than half an hour already. The second session of the bareback riding was over and the steer wrestling was half done. Up in the stands, there were way more people than had showed for the first show, and Jack couldn’t immediately see a way to squeeze himself into a seat. Instead he stood by the fence and watched a young man about the age that they’d been on Brokeback take down a steer in seven seconds flat, good for this level of competition. Rocky and Ennis guided the animal back where he belonged, through the open gate toward the back pens, like they’d been doing this together as a team for years. Smooth as silk. Jack wished that Ennis could see him, but he had to know that Jack would be there somewhere, watching. 

“Mr. Twist?” came a voice at his elbow as the announcer told everybody the calf roping would be next, followed by the kids’ calf scramble.

It was Matt Buckminster, who’d been sent by his mom to get Jack and let him know they’d saved a seat for him. It seemed that Betty Jo was set on being extra friendly. Jack climbed the steps behind Matt and sat himself down in a prime location, between Floyd and Betty Jo, with Maria sitting in front of them with Matt and Davey. Floyd had a friend seated next to him that Jack got introduced to, but in the noise of the crowd cheering right then he didn’t even catch the man’s name, though he did hear he worked at the local lumberyard. Jack nodded to the guy, who wasn’t nearly as old as Floyd and about half his weight. 

“What’d I miss?” he wanted to know, and that was all he had to ask to get more than he wanted from Betty Jo and Floyd but especially from Matt, who seemed to think he was some sort of rodeo-guru, the way he treated Jack. 

Once he was filled in, he asked Betty Jo if she’d seen Bobby, but she hadn’t, though she looked worried and asked if he’d seen Tag. He could at least tell her as of about an hour and a half before, which was something, but apparently not enough. 

“They’re just off doing kid things,” Jack reassured. At least he hoped so.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said with her mouth a grim line. “What boys that age get into these days is a far cry from how it was when we were growing up.” Then she seemed to realize who she was talking to and said, “Not that I mean to imply that your son .... He seemed like a nice young man.” 

Jack wanted to ask why she’d let Tag go off if she was fretting about him now, thought that he shouldn’t but said it anyway. She laughed at herself and said she was an overindulgent mother with a guilt complex, and shame on her. Floyd leaned across Jack and tapped her on the knee. “Raising kids these days is difficult, and you and Rocky are doing a fine job. It isn’t your fault the world makes it hard.” 

Nobody in the Buckminster group was fit for the calf scramble. Betty Jo said Davey couldn’t do it, even though at age seven he was within the age range and he looked like a sturdy boy to Jack even if he was small. So instead of watching a passel of kids chasing some poor calf across the ring trying to get the ribbon off his tail, Jack took drink orders and went to the concession stand with Matt, getting everybody something, his treat. He thought about picking up an extra Dr Pepper for Bobby in case he showed, but he didn’t. 

While they were standing in line, Matt showered him with questions about rodeoing. They were easy to answer. Talking about it with Matt brought back some strong memories: how it’d been sitting in the chute the seconds before the gate opened, with almost a ton of angry animal between his legs, putting aside fear and gathering up courage. Sometimes it’d felt the only time he was really himself was when he was up on the bulls, because there was no way to pretend anything there. Those eight seconds could go on and on, especially when he was almost there, almost there .... An eternity. Those times he’d made the ride, they’d been good eternities, not the everlasting hellfire and damnation Andy thought he was headed for. 

The rodeo wound on the way every rodeo ever had and the way every rodeo always would. After the scramble came the barrel racing, and after that the two clowns that would work during the bull riding came out and entertained the crowd. Floyd said they were both Shriners and good men but getting up in years, as if he wasn’t, which Jack had the nerve to point out to him. Floyd didn’t seem to mind. He said it was true, he was seventy-one but he could still put in a full day’s work, couldn’t he? And come up with unanswerable questions. That made the lumber-guy next to him snort and say, you think you’re a philosopher, you old eagle-feather. Come down off your high horse. What? Jack wanted to know, but Floyd just said, ask Ennis about it. He’s got some good ones.

By the time the saddlebronc riding had come and gone and the bull riding was set to begin, the hard, backless bench he was sitting on was getting to Jack. He was ready for the rodeo to finish up. He liked being with Betty Jo and the others, even Floyd’s friend being congenial, and it sure beat sitting alone with nobody to talk to. But Ennis was right on view in front of him with every ride, sitting on his horse in the best way, reminding Jack of what he’d probably think of all this consorting with people. But he’d got sucked into it, because how was he supposed to say no in the face of all this friendliness? Especially when it suited him; this was a good way to spend a day, and how he wanted life to go for him and Ennis together ... well, forgetting all that Andy had said. And forgetting about Fancy being taken away. 

He wished Bobby would show up. As soon as the bulls had their say he wanted to head off, but he had a feeling maybe he’d have to go looking for the boy. And he wanted to connect with Ennis before they left, to find out what he wanted to do for dinner. Jack sure didn’t feel like cooking, and he bet after a day under the spotlight, along with Mister Mark O’Hara doing the evil deed, that Ennis wouldn’t either. Out in the ring, Ennis looked calm, but Jack knew how churned up his fella could get over things, and he guessed there was a lot more going on under that set, ordinary expression than Ennis was showing to the world. Then again, going out to a restaurant wasn’t ever something ordinary for them, and with Bobby along .... 

Betty Jo leaned in close to him, startling him from his single-minded thoughts. For a second Jack thought she might say something about him staring in one direction, at one particular person. 

“I think Samson was a wonderful acquisition for us. Ennis did a fine job with him, don’t you think? That horse looks like he’s been doing this work for years instead of months, and we’ve already received several comments on his performance. It’s wonderful advertising for the ranch.”

Jack took a second look out there. Guessed he’d been checking out the rider more than the horse. “It’s because he’s big that he gets the notice,” he said. “He’s more than seventeen hands.” 

“A shade under seventeen and a half,” Betty Jo said. “Oh, look, here we go.” 

Bull riding was the hardest event of all, the most dangerous, and traditionally the last one on the program. Jack had been in a rodeo or two where not a single rider managed to hang on for the eight seconds, and he’d been bucked off more often than he’d stayed on. It seemed that this rodeo wasn’t any different from the others. None of the first four contestants stayed on even five seconds. The clowns did their job, keeping the bulls from attacking the riders once they were on the ground, distracting them. Rocky and Ennis didn’t have much to do, since the bulls wanted no part of staying out in the ring and headed for the exit gate as soon as it swung open. Jack watched Ennis sitting on the big bay, his head up for once, ready to urge Samson into speed if need be. He was everything a man on a horse should be. Jack suddenly thought of that picture he’d wanted Morgan to paint. Ennis on Samson: that would be one fine sight to have in their house. 

The sixth rider almost made it and had the whole crowd cheering for him. Everybody rose to their feet, but then the bull changed direction and the rider went flying. Wham! He landed in the dirt face down, and there were some anxious moments when he didn’t stir the whole time the clowns chased the bull away from him. By the time anybody got to his side, though, he was sitting up, and a minute later he limped away, waving his hat to the crowd. 

“We know that young man’s mother,” Betty Jo said with a frown. “I’m sure she’s here.”

Matt turned and grinned at the adults behind him. “I bet she just had a heart attack!” 

The seventh rider was getting ready when Jack spotted Bobby at last. He was down by the rail, where Jack had stood before, with one foot up on the bottom slat, looking into the ring like rodeo was the most important thing in his world. Jack knew for sure it wasn’t. He almost told Betty Jo, but Tag wasn’t anywhere he could see. A commotion in the chutes grabbed his attention as the bull about to be let loose kicked up a fuss, banging his horns back and forth against the rails so fiercely it could be heard up where they were sitting. The rider popped up onto the fence for a couple of seconds and then got back down to re-wrap the bull rope around his hand. That rope, braided where it was held on to, was the only thing that kept man on beast.

Betty Jo was staring in that direction, a world of fear and worry heavy on her face. “Floyd ... ” she said. 

“My eyesight isn’t what it used to be,” Floyd said, shading his eyes and squinting. 

Shit! Jack tried to remember what Tag had been wearing. The rider had on a plaid shirt but there were hundreds of those around.

“He wouldn’t,” Betty Jo said. “Oh, God, I will kill him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s never ridden bulls. Why would he do this?”

“Calm down, it might not be -- ”

“Put your hands together,” the announcer said, “for our next-to-last contestant, Terence Buckminster, riding Red Devil.”

Betty Jo grabbed Jack’s fingers as tightly as any woman could. And she moaned. Jack had enough time to realize how he’d feel if it was Bobby who’d pulled a stunt like this when the chute gate opened and the bull burst into the arena. 

The boy had grit, Jack had to give him that. Red Devil came charging out with a vicious cork-screwing jump up into the air that would’ve unseated plenty of seasoned riders. But Tag stayed on, and Jack could see that his hold on the rope was firm. 

Down came the bull on his front legs again, kicking up as high as he could in the back. That threw Tag way forward, his face close to the long stubs of the bull’s sawed-off horns. A thought flashed through Jack’s mind: did the boy consider any big danger now? A little more force from that jump and his forehead would’ve been banging on the things. Jack had known more than one rider who’d been knocked unconscious that way. 

But Tag was showing perfect bull-riding form, his legs gripping the sides just right, his free arm up in the air swinging to help keep his balance. He pulled himself upright quick as a flash as Red Devil began to buck and spin, the classic way the best of the bulls fought their eight second war against the men on their backs. 

But Tag wasn’t a man, he was a boy like Bobby, and his mama was sitting next to Jack like a column of ice. Already Red Devil had shown enough for any stock contractor in the country to want him for his professional string, and Jack cursed that the boy had been handed the best bull by far of all they’d seen. Except ... he was riding that red-hided demon. Somehow Tag was holding on when Jack didn’t understand how he was doing it. He knew what kind of force a buck-and-spin like the bull was doing put on a man’s arm; he got a phantom ache in his own arm every now and then just remembering. It was a miracle past his knowing that somebody with hardly any experience was still on top of that animal. 

The crowd was roaring, sensing that finally they might get their complete ride, not knowing this was a raw boy who had no business being in the contest. But Jack didn’t care if Tag made his time, he only wanted him to be able to walk out of the ring in one piece. That way his mom and dad could do the job that the bull had missed and kill the kid. 

Right in front of him, Matt jumped to his feet, screaming, “Go, Tag!” Jack was forced to stand so he could see, hauling Betty Jo up with him through the hold she still had on him. 

Red Devil was bucking in a straight line now, down the length of the chutes toward their side of the stands with the two clowns running after him. Jack saw that Tag was ... smiling. The kid wasn’t even wearing a mouthguard. 

“He’s done it!” Matt jumped up and down as the buzzer went off, and the crowd let out a huge cheer. 

Except nobody had told the bull anything about time. He only knew there was weight on his back that he wanted off. And Tag .... Didn’t he know enough to pull on the flapping end of the bull rope so his hand could get loose? Any fool watching rodeo all their lives had to be aware that’s what you did when the ride was over, because nobody pulled riders off bulls like they did with bucking horses. It was way too dangerous. The rider had to jump off. Why didn’t Tag do that?

Jack darted a look toward Ennis in the ring, and by God Rocky too. The boy’s dad was right there getting a bird’s-eye view of how his son was being incredibly stupid and brave. They had their horses fanned out on either side, up as close as they could come and still be safe, but there wasn’t much they could do.

“Oh, God,” Betty Jo whispered as the bull came closer, still bucking like a demon, his big red head down as he headed for the side fence. At the last instant he swerved so there wasn’t a full-on collision but instead a brush against the wood, and Jack watched as Tag’s leg was squeezed between hide and chute gate. Then Red Devil was off again, half-running, half-bucking now as he aimed for the middle of the ring with the clowns trying hard to keep up.

“Jump! Tag, Jump off!” Matt was yelling at the top of his lungs, and everybody else around them was doing the same, but it seemed that getting off wasn’t any part of Tag’s plan. He was still holding on with one hand, when any bull rider worth his salt used both once the time was over. Now it seemed he wanted to give the crowd a show, because he started using his spurs, raking them hard across the bull’s shoulders. 

Red Devil gave a bellow that everybody could hear even with all the yelling going on. A long string of spittle flew up into the air as the bull tossed his head and bucked like a world champion, whirling around to the left, away from Tag’s riding hand, and still Tag held on. Three, four seconds the bull whirled on one spot, and then he dashed off toward the far end of the ring, something bulls hardly ever did, but nothing about this ride was ordinary. Jack hadn’t ever seen anything like it. 

But it seemed his damnfool partner-in-life had seen more than enough. There was a flash of brown and black as Samson lit out after Red Devil, with Ennis low over his neck urging him on. Jack’s stomach heaved directly into his throat. Godalmighty, Ennis was going to try to pull the kid off. 

He wanted to yell _No, don’t do it, you crazy sonuvabitch,_ but how else were they going to get Tag back to his own two feet? Sometimes when a rider got caught by his riding hand and was dragged, the way that’d happened to him the second time against Chili Pepper, the bravest of the clowns would jump up and pull the rope loose so the rider could finally get away. But these clowns here were so far behind it wasn’t even funny. Right now it was up to the hazers, who never worked with the bulls, who had no more experience with this than Tag did. All the worst things that could happen raced through Jack’s mind. So long as Ennis could force his horse close enough, if the bull didn’t snap his head to the side and push his horn, sawed-off or not, into Samson’s chest, if Ennis didn’t fall off and get trampled, if Red Devil cooperated and didn’t go into a mountain of bucking, whirling bull at exactly the wrong moment .... 

“Go, Ennis!” Matt hollered. Red Devil was real close to the end of the arena, where there weren’t any stands, only the calf roping chutes, and unless he was going to barge through the fencing, the bull would need to turn one way or the other. Jack riveted his sight on Ennis, saw the smallest shift in his balance, saw Samson respond like the well-trained horse he was and move off to the right. 

Jack was hardly aware of the roaring from the crowd. Ennis had guessed right; Red Devil veered off that way, and as he turned along the back end of the arena Ennis urged Samson up next to him. Jack saw how Samson didn’t want to go, the resistance in his gait, but Ennis’s legs were firm, his hand on the reins not leaving room for argument. Even if the horse didn’t want to go into that corner with a wild bull, the rider did. 

Another bellow from the bull, who didn’t like being cornered one bit, and he tossed his head again. Samson slowed and dropped to the bull’s hindquarters, but Ennis wasn’t having none of that. He gave his horse heel. In another two strides bull and horse were neck and neck, with the corner of the arena coming up fast, another couple seconds, only one chance here .... 

“You’ve got it,” Jack said under his breath. “Go ahead .... ” 

Ennis reached over toward the bull rope -- _JesusBuddhaYahweh whatever the hell your name is don’t let the bull start jumping now_ \-- and it would be all over soon .... 

But Tag reached too, and he shoved Ennis’s hand away. 

A man -- or a boy -- couldn’t be rescued if he didn’t want to be. Betty Jo was going to have to get in line behind Jack Twist to murder Tag. 

Red Devil might be willing to smash himself right into the corner of the arena or maybe he wasn’t, but Ennis pulled Samson up sharply the next second, forcing him into a long, skidding, on-his-hindquarters stop that cut two grooves in the dirt. Jack winced to consider the strain on the horse’s back legs, even as at the same time he wanted to scream and holler for Ennis showing the very best riding and horse control there could be. 

Bull and horse skidded to a stop about the same time, their noses quivering side by side, inches from the rails. In that one second where nothing else was moving, Ennis made another grab at the rope and Tag blocked him; even from this far away Jack could see him yelling something like a crazy person ... and Red Devil’d had enough. He lunged to the side, kicking out, and threw his weight against Samson, trying to get away.

The horse staggered; any horse would, even a big strong one like Samson. It was like everybody in the stands took in their breaths at the same time, the sound was that loud. Jack would have taken in that breath but his whole body was reaching out to Ennis all that distance away, a world away from where he could actually help, but inside he was hollering _Get off! Get off!_ Samson was fighting to keep his balance but it wasn’t going to happen. Down he went, flopping over to his side. Ennis managed not to get trapped, sliding off at the last second and making it look easy. There he was standing next to his horse, who was thrashing trying to get up, spare feet away from the bull’s hooves and his horns, a bull who in one more second was going to take off again. Red Devil was gathering up to start running or jumping, and the fool boy on his back was extending his legs and laughing again, ready to rake his spurs where they’d do the most harm. Christ! If Tag got the bull bucking again, right where Ennis was, one stray hoof could connect with him, his face, his jaw, his shoulder, his head .... 

Jack’s slow-thinking man, never one to decide on anything in a hurry, jumped right from where he was standing and landed crosswise in front of the boy. He grabbed the bull rope for the third try, and this time nothing Tag could do stopped him. Ennis yanked at it and it came loose, releasing the boy’s hand. As the bull moved and Ennis started to fall back, he took that idiot Buckminster around the waist and pulled him down to the ground with him. 

For a couple of seconds while his heart pounded, Jack thought for sure that one or both of them would get stepped on or jabbed, because Red Devil was madder than hell. He swerved around, all four legs seeming to leave earth at once. He snorted, bull snot flying, and sent a glare from his beady red eyes at the two-legged animals sprawled in front of him. But Rocky came riding up then from where he’d been waiting close by, with his rope out and twirling, and the bull must have figured he’d won this round after all. He lit off in an easy lope toward the open gate at the other end. 

Tag jumped up right away, looking like he was ready to ride the next bull and the one after that, but it took Ennis longer to get up. Jack watched them but inside he felt like a lit firecracker not quite down to explosion point; he wanted to grab Tag by his throat and squeeze until he turned purple and his eyes bulged out. Once up, Ennis favored his leg or his foot, the right, same one that he’d been walking on badly before; he put weight on it cautiously, then took a couple steps, straightened, and then took some more. The clowns came running up, followed by some guy in a white shirt and black hat that Jack figured had to be the rodeo doctor. He went over to Ennis first, who waved him off, Jack recognizing that he was talking gruff. He could just imagine Ennis saying, “Nothing wrong with me, see to the boy.” 

Nothing wrong by the grace of God, as Faye always used to say, or at least not as bad as it might’ve been. Jack wanted to charge down there himself to make sure, but he wouldn’t, because the last thing Ennis would want was more attention put on him. 

Of a sudden, Jack felt a tug on his hand, and he was pulled back down to the bench as Betty Jo sat down heavily. She dropped her head in her other hand, shuddered, and drew in breath. 

“Betty Jo? Are you okay?”

She lifted her face to him, white as the doctor’s shirt, and said, “Oh, Jack, I am so sorry. My son almost killed Ennis. How can I .... I am so sorry.”

Not dead, no, but Ennis had been forced into taking risks he shouldn’t of had to because Tag had wanted to show off. All rodeo workers knew there were risks, but prideful foolhardiness wasn’t expected to be one of them. It wasn’t Betty Jo who should be saying sorry, it was Tag, but Jack knew pretty sure that the boy didn’t see it that way. 

Instead he said, “They’re both okay, you’ll see. Anyway, that’s not your fault, he -- ”

She finally released her grip on him, jumped back to her feet, and announced to the whole world, “This is it! I’ve had it. We are going to do something about him this time, I don’t care how much it costs or how much school he misses. I don’t care if he graduates with his class! This is .... He could have been killed! He could have killed others! Ennis, his father .... Did you see what he did? The most irresponsible, stupid, dangerous stunt I have ever -- ”

“Now, Betty Jo,” Floyd said from Jack’s other side, “calm down.” 

He pushed his way past Jack and put an arm around her shoulders, but she shook him off. “I will not calm down! I am going to see that boy right now! Floyd, please take care of Davey.”

Everybody else in the stands were still on their feet, gawking at the aftermath of the most exciting ride this rodeo had seen, but the aisles were mostly clear. Betty Jo stormed down the steps. Jack stood up and watched her go, one determined woman. Good. Maybe she’d turn Tag worse than purple.

“Where’s Mom going?” Matt wanted to know. He turned around toward Jack, his face practically glowing with excitement. “Wow! Did you see that? What Tag did? I can’t believe he rode that bull so long. I’m going to the back where Tag’ll be!” Off Matt went, skittering past everybody in the row and jumping down the steps two at a time, every inch of him about ten years old.

“Matt, come back here,” Floyd hollered, but he wasn’t listened to, probably wasn’t heard with all the talk buzzing in the stands. He shook his head. “Maria, come on, we’d better go after them. Here, I’ll carry Davey.” 

That left Jack standing with whatever-his-name-was, who was still staring down at what was going on in the ring. Samson had already got to his feet, and Ennis was bent over, running his hands down the horse’s legs. The doctor was with Tag, walking him back to the front chutes, making slow going in the deep dirt. Tag was talking to him a mile a minute, but it didn’t seem to Jack that the doctor was listening. 

“That,” Floyd’s stringy friend said, “was more excitement than I thought I’d see today. I understand you know that hazer down there, the one who pulled the boy off?” 

“Yeah,” Jack said, swallowing. “I know him.”

“He did a good job.” 

“He’d say it wasn’t anything.”

Floyd-friend shrugged. “Maybe, but it sure looked like something from up here.” 

Ennis hauled himself back into the saddle, a real good sign for the horse, since he’d never get up on Samson that quickly if he thought there might be a problem. But there was no indication one way or the other about the condition of the man. He walked Samson forward a bit, then nodded to Rocky. They took up their stations in the ring again, because there was, after all, one more man set to ride his bull. 

“The score for Terence Buckminster is eighty-one and a half. Now, ladies and gentlemen, our last rider for the day, please put your hands together and welcome Dan Patterson from Angel Fire, riding Chances Are.”

Jack didn’t watch the preparations for that final ride. He was searching through the crowd for Bobby. Now that he had a chance to think, how likely was it that his boy’d had a hand in what had just happened? All afternoon hanging around the Buckminster kid, showing up at the arena right when it was time for Tag to ride .... Hell. Bobby had some explaining to do. 

Something made him look off to the side, and there was a streak of a brown-headed boy headed for the back, like everybody else Jack knew. 

He said, “’Scuse me,” to the Floyd-friend, and down he went. He fumed because he got stuck in the crowd leaving when the last rider fell off right away, and then he couldn’t see Bobby anymore. After a few minutes the announcer said that the winner of the first prize money and the bull buckle was Terence Buckminster, but that he wasn’t available to make the traditional ride around the arena behind a man carrying the U.S. flag. He would accept his prizes behind the scenes. 

Behind the scenes, once Jack got there, was a mess of people milling around in the space between one pen that held a bunch of calves and another that corralled the horses that’d been used in the bronc riding, all of them looking tame as could be now. There wasn’t any roof over their heads. They were socked in instead by a gray sky that showed a hint of breaking up to the west. Over by the broncs was the doctor and a couple of old men; Tag seemed to be arguing with them. Rocky loomed over his son, gripping his arm like he was a jailer and Tag was his prisoner. From the expression on his face, that was probably true. Betty Jo was on Tag’s other side, looking fierce, but there were tear tracks down her cheeks. Jack was real sorry to see that.

Jack pushed his way through the crowd, saying “pardon me,” and “excuse me” as he went searching for that son of his. Instead he came upon that man of his. Ennis was sheltering next to Samson, shoulder to shoulder, holding the reins close to the bit. He looked like a scared bird ready to take off any second, surrounded by people who wanted to shake his hand and say something to him. 

Jack stayed back and watched, thinking this day sure hadn’t worked out the way they’d wanted it to. It caused him real discomfort to see three men in a row come up to his Wyoming man, saying “fine thing you did out there” and “good riding I saw you do,” not a one of them taking note of how Ennis barely looked at them or getting the message to back off. Jack understood how little Ennis wanted the notice; it just wasn’t in his nature.

Finally the people left. Ennis didn’t waste any time hunching a shoulder, turning away, and leading Samson toward the small forest of trucks and horse trailers parked behind the pens. 

Jack came up beside him, and Ennis flicked him a glance as sharp as a granite flint. “Hey, there,” Jack said. 

“Oh, you,” Ennis said, and his look didn’t seem to soften all that much. 

“Yeah, me.”

“Not enough I got to be the center of the whole goddamned universe, now you’re on me too.” 

“How’re you?”

There went that shoulder, up again as if Ennis could hide behind it. “I’d be fine if folks would leave me be.” 

“I’m not folks.” 

“So you say.” 

“Did you get kicked?”

“Of course I got kicked. That devil-bull wasn’t asking me out for a beer, you know. So how come you spent the whole day with the people who hand me a paycheck, huh? I swear, Jack, you’ve got no more sense than a tick on a hound dog.”

Jack had spent enough time living with the man to know when he was serious about complaining and when it was a smokescreen for something else. “I guess you’re hurting right now, aren’t you?”

“Not like the bone’s sticking out.”

“How bad is it?”

“Damnit, quit your fussing.” 

Jack folded his lips over any reply. He walked alongside man and horse over uneven ground, dropped behind when they had to go between two trucks, then came up alongside again. Ennis was walking with his head down, his right hand holding on to Samson’s mane, and the horse’s head was down the same way, as if both of them were together in being worn out after a hard, unfamiliar day and glad that it was over. 

“I’m just sore, that’s all,” Ennis said a lot more quietly, more like a man who wasn’t stretched past the edges of his patience. “I’ve had worse.” 

“You sure nothing’s broke?”

“Pretty sure. Those bulls have big hooves, though.” 

Hell. It crossed his mind to suggest that he drive the Ram with Ennis and let Bobby drive his own pick-up, but that idea had no wings. “We’ve got some Advil in the bathroom. You should take some when you get home. How about I pick up some food on the way? You want chicken? Or some barbecue?” 

“I don’t care.” It’d been a long day, made longer by the kid’s foolishness, and suddenly that sounded in Ennis’s voice. 

“You like that chicken fried steak sandwich from Maudie’s, don’t you?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll get that for us.” They walked along a few more steps. “I guess Rocky’s real glad he hired you, that you were around to do that for his son.”

Ennis snorted. “Idiot son.” 

“That’s for sure.”

Ennis looked at him sidelong. “He was doped up, you know that? Least that’s what Betty Jo was hollering at him about. Seems he’s been getting into the hard stuff.”

“You’re kidding.” That ride suddenly made sense to Jack, how the kid had held on. 

“I heard the doctor say he thought so too, and the committee’ll probably take away his win. Damn kid.”

“I saw Betty Jo and Rocky with him out back. It seemed they knew something was going on.” 

“They sure did. Tag got suspended from the football team for doing dope this week. Rocky and Betty Jo were asking the doctor about places to send him away, put him in rehab.”

“It’s murder being a parent.” 

“Yeah. I’d never think on meeting them that they’d have trouble like this.” 

They reached a nice-looking two-horse Comanche trailer, silver with red stripes along the sides. Ennis hitched Samson to the side of it, pausing to run his hand up to the horse’s ears and murmur something soothing in them. Jack didn’t stop to ask: he flipped the stirrup up and started to work on the saddle cinch. 

“It doesn’t seem that Samson took any harm from that fall,” Jack said, putting some effort into undoing the girth strap that was higher than he was used to.

For just a couple of seconds, Ennis leaned into the big bay’s neck, burying his face in the sweaty horseflesh, and then he pushed himself away. “What was I supposed to do, huh? The man’s horse under me, the man’s son up on that bull.”

“A devil of a choice,” Jack agreed, “but you made the right one.” He pulled the saddle off. 

Ennis laid a hand on the horse’s cheek. “Would’ve come on me hard if he’d been hurt.” He shook his head. “You need some water, darling, don’t you?” Off Ennis went to get a bucket from a barrel not far away.

Jack hauled the saddle to the front compartment of the trailer where there was more tack and supplies, all good-looking equipment, not new, not first-class or flashy, but good quality that would last a long time. 

“Hey, Dad! Are you in there?” 

Jack took his time setting the saddle on the rack and then backing out. He turned around to see his son. 

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Bobby said. “Matt told me he saw you coming down this way. Did you see what happened?”

“I saw it,” Jack said with a frown. He could feel tightness between his eyes and across his forehead. 

“What’s the matter?” Bobby asked. “Tag won first place,” he said, as if that excused everything.

Samson took an eager step, his head coming up and straining the reins, because Ennis was back with the water. He held it out for the horse, who plunged his muzzle in the bucket with no delay. Ennis looked at Jack and Bobby with uneasy eyes, but he didn’t say anything. Jack did; he hadn’t gone off looking for the boy just to pass the time of day. “Did you know he was going to ride that bull?” he asked.

Bobby stuck his hands in the pockets of Jack’s good jacket. “Sure.” 

“And you let him do that, knowing that he -- ”

“I’m not his dad. Besides, he said he knew what he was doing. You know, that he wanted to surprise his family.”

“Oh, no you don’t. You heard this morning that Matt said he was never interested in rodeo, same as I heard, so don’t lie to me.” 

There was that stubborn jaw of Bobby’s, jutted out like the boy was in kindergarten. “I’m not lying.”

Jack felt his temper slipping away and tried to keep hold of it. “Are you saying I imagined Matt saying that?” 

“Tag said he’d been practicing over at his friend’s house and -- ”

“Bull riding isn’t a joke. Didn’t I raise you better, to have some sense, haven’t I taught you anything?”

“You taught me plenty, but Tag said -- ”

Disgusted, Jack said, “Tag doesn’t know enough to drag his head out of his ass.”

“Fuck, Dad, nothing happened. He won!”

“You watch how you talk,” he said, knowing how Bobby would react to that even as he said it, and feeling no triumph when a sullen frown settled on his boy’s face. At no time when he’d been thinking how this weekend would go had he considered that he’d need to talk to Bobby like this. “No, he didn’t win, because those in charge are going to take that away from him. You saw how he wouldn’t come down off that bull. Ennis tells me he was likely high on something when he rode.”

Bobby frowned even more. “I wouldn’t know.” 

“Seems to me he must’ve got into it at the fair, and you were with him most of the -- ”

“I didn’t see anything!”

“Nothing at all?” Jack asked, letting show how skeptical he was.

“That’s what I said!” Bobby threw that out fiercely. “Why are you on my case?” 

“Because I’m your dad, that’s why.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I guess that’s the point. You’d be feeling mighty differently if somebody was being taken to the hospital right now, or laying dead, or at least I hope you would be.”

Bobby shot a resentful look not at him but at Ennis. “Listen, I’ve got to go get Sandy’s stuffed animal back at the fair. Are you done yelling at me for no good reason? Because if you are, I’ll go do that now.” 

Jack sighed. He’d liked it better when he could tell Bobby to go stand in the corner, or take away his bike for a day. “Go on, get it. I’ll meet you back at the truck.” 

He watched Bobby throw another frown Ennis’s way and then take off. Jack rubbed at his face, knowing he hadn’t handled that the best of ways. Here he was hoping the weekend would get Bobby to see the best of Ennis, and Ennis to see the best of Bobby, and now he’d embarrassed the boy and shown Ennis that maybe there was some more fathering that needed to be done. He turned around and saw Ennis brushing Samson down. The bucket was empty, so he went and got more water, since Rocky’s horse would show up sooner or later. 

“You don’t need to do that,” Ennis said, reaching up to Samson’s high withers and sweeping the curry brush along his shoulder.

Jack set the bucket down between his feet. “I don’t have anything else to do.” 

“You were a little hard on your boy.” 

“No more than he deserves.” 

Ennis grunted, Samson snorted, and then a voice came from behind them. 

“Jack?” He turned and saw Andy’s pastor. “Sorry to interrupt, but could I have a word with you, please?” 

Jesushavemercy, he couldn’t wait to bolt for Eagle Nest, slam their own door behind them, and hide from the rest of the goddamned world. What the hell could George want with him now? It was hard to take his mind off Bobby, off needing and wanting to get home, but he didn’t have much choice. Seemed that’d been happening to him and Ennis a lot lately. 

“Okay, Reverend.” Jack picked up the bucket and set it closer to the trailer, though why he did that he hardly knew. Then he went over and put a hand on Samson’s rump, watching as Ennis’s arm rose and fell with the brush. “I’ll ... I’ll see you around, okay?”

Ennis didn’t spare him a glance. “Sure thing.” 

Jack walked away with the man of God who didn’t know the truth about him, who he’d just met, and who yet had such power over him and over Ennis that he could pull them apart with one innocent question. Jack looked up at the sky, angry to the east, clearing to the west; he figured the weatherman might’ve been wrong and they would get some rain before nightfall. He didn’t relish the thought of driving home with Bobby on slick roads. 

Jack stopped where he was, between an El Camino and a hunk-of-junk pick-up. “George,” he said, “hold up. I need to get on home. Think you could say whatever you need to say to me right here?” 

George apologized and then told him that he could have his pick of any piece of equipment that hadn’t sold as payment for the auctioning. Or two or three pieces, as many as he wanted, since the rest would be hauled off on Monday to be junked. 

Jack hardly listened, since he saw Bobby behind the stuffed dragon cutting across toward the parking lot. He said, sure, thanks a lot, maybe he’d come up here tomorrow to look, but for now he had to go. 

Bobby was waiting for him by the truck, looking like a turtle with the jacket zipped all the way up to his chin. The temperature was headed south in a hurry, more so here in the close grip of the mountains than how it would be in the high open space where they lived. 

“Where’ve you been?” Bobby asked, as if he’d been abandoned for an hour and was ten years younger. “I’m freezing.”

Jack got in the truck and unlocked the passenger side. The boy put the dragon between them, sitting it up as if it was a dog interested in looking out at the view. 

“You should’ve brought better clothes. New Mexico isn’t Texas, you know.” 

“And I guess you walked through snow for five miles to get to school when you were a kid in Wyoming.”

Damn right. Anything to get to the bus stop that would take him away from home. Jack threw his son a resentful look at the same time as Bobby sent the same look his way, over the stuffed golden wings, and maybe it was just as well that the thing was stuck between them. 

How many people there were at the rodeo Jack didn’t know, but all of them were trying to get out onto the highway at once. They sat in line for fifteen minutes, inching forward now and then, the two Twist men reduced to the unnatural state of stubborn silence. Jack could’ve cheered when they finally made it onto the blacktop. Though there were trucks and cars crowded before and after them on the one lane south, at least they were making progress. 

Four or five miles on the sun broke through, the slanting rays pouring on them in contrast to the gray of the rest of the day and the bulk of the mountains that were still close to either side of them. A few minutes later a gentle rain began falling, a sun shower. Jack turned on the wipers, but they were hardly needed. He flipped down his visor to shield his eyes from the glare of the wet highway.

“I think you’re jealous.” 

Bobby said it quietly; Jack wasn’t positive he’d heard that right, not with the road noise and the splashing of the sun-filled rain. “What?” 

“I said,” Bobby said with an exaggerated patience that really rubbed against Jack the wrong way, “I think you’re jealous that Tag rode the bull his first time out, like you did. It doesn’t make your story sound so good anymore. That’s why you yelled at me.” 

Goddamned kids, they wormed their way into your heart and then they stomped all over it. 

It took almost half a mile for Jack to get control enough of his anger and hurt that his voice would work. “You think that’s why? That I’m so caught up in what I did nearly twenty years ago that it’s all I’ve got in my life?”

He saw Bobby’s face get harder. “Yeah.” 

“Thanks,” Jack spit out. “Good to know what you really think of your dad.” He turned the wipers on high and then turned them back down again. “Maybe you’ll see things differently some day, when you know that seventeen isn’t the be-all and end-all of things.”

“You’re just on my case because of the drugs. All parents are, like, paranoid about drugs, like we’ll all be in prison for the rest of our lives if we pick up a joint. Or, like, murder a hundred people.” 

“What do you know about joints?”

“Oh, come on, Dad. They’re at every party I’ve been to the last two years.”

In Childress? Well, yeah, in Childress, because he’d got the weed he’d brought with him to Wyoming a time or two at a highway stop not far from town. He wanted to ask Bobby about it, but he was afraid of the answer he might get. Instead he asked, “Did you know Tag was using something stronger?” 

Bobby shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. He said he met a friend of his right after the first rodeo, and then he caught up with me and we bummed around together. I thought he was, you know, just like that. Hyper and talking all the time.” He shot a look across the dragon. “Like you are. Sometimes.” He turned away. 

Jack swallowed a reaction to that insult. “You know, if you’d told somebody what Tag was planning, then -- ”

“What did you expect me to do, tattle on him like we were kids? Come on, Dad, get real. That wasn’t going to happen.” 

“Even so, somebody could’ve been hurt real bad by that stunt. Tag could’ve been killed, getting on a bull while he was that way. Or Ennis could’ve been hurt worse than he was.” 

Bobby mumbled something into his chest. 

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes you did.”

“If you’re that sure, then you tell me what I said.” 

“Bobby!” If they hadn’t been on the highway with twenty trucks behind them, Jack would’ve stood on his brakes and brought the Ford to a screeching halt. 

Bobby shoved the dragon down flat on the seat, clearing the space between them. “You’re mad at me because of Ennis.”

“What?” That made the third reason Bobby had given, and Jack was sick of trying to follow the workings of his son’s mind. 

“Just because Ennis got knocked down, big deal.” 

“Big deal?” Jack asked, outraged that Bobby could say that but feeling the nibbling edge of truth. “He could’ve -- ”

“He’s all you care about, isn’t he? You don’t care about me. I’m a pain to you now, and you can’t wait to get rid of me.” 

“That’s not so!” he protested, and then he said it again as if to convince himself. “It’s not that way at all! Who was the one who pushed you to come visit, who -- ”

“I think you’ve forgotten that I’m a senior in high school. I’m not a little kid you can boss around anymore. I’m not even living with you, and I’m glad I’m not. Even Mrs. Montcrief doesn’t get on me like you’re doing.”

“You might be in high school but you’re still my son, and -- ”

Bobby drew in a shaky breath and plowed right over him. “And you didn’t care about mom for years. Ever! You never cared about her, did you? I’m not stupid, I can do the math. I know she was pregnant with me when you married her. It didn’t use to bother me, but now I know the truth of it. You didn’t want her and you didn’t want me. All you wanted was to go off with Ennis!”

Jack flushed. He could feel the heat come over him, and he trembled, because how dare Bobby .... What was he supposed to say to that? 

_You’re fucking right, I sure did want to go off with Ennis. I’m a selfish bastard of a dad._

Or maybe _That might’ve been what I wanted to do, but since I couldn’t, I tried to be a good father to you. I tried, Bobby. And I tried my best with your mom, God knows I did._

The truth was somewhere in-between. He couldn’t find a way to untangle the complicated, messy reality that had been his life so he could explain it. Not that he wanted to, not to this snotty kid of his that he’d been so proud of the night before. 

“You don’t know anything about what you’re talking about,” he said hard, biting off his words. “Yeah, your mom was pregnant with you when we got married, but that doesn’t have anything to do with how -- ”

Bobby didn’t let him go on. “Mom would have hated you if she’d known you were screwing around with ... with another man while you were married to her. You cheated on her. I can’t believe you did that when she was so ... so good,” he said, with all the passion of a boy who had loved his mom and was still coping with the reality of never seeing her again. “I don’t believe you when you say she understood about you being gay, because she wouldn’t have, I know she wouldn’t have. I bet you’re happy that Mom died. That way you don’t need to feel guilty about what you did to her.”

Jack pounded on the steering wheel and hollered, “Fuck!” He’d never come so close to hauling off and smacking his own son the way he’d been smacked, what he had promised himself he would never do, meaning to hurt, using his grown strength against a boy. He wasn’t the same as his own dad, he wasn’t, but shit if Bobby wasn’t driving him to the edge. “That isn’t -- ” he started off with heat, but Bobby was on a roll and wouldn’t be stopped. 

“And another thing. I don’t see ... ” Bobby choked on the words. “I don’t see how you could want to be with a man, I really can’t. Somebody like Ennis instead of Mom. She was beautiful, you said it yourself, she really was. And she loved you, I know she loved you if only you two had stopped fighting. Ennis is ... he’s got such a dumb name, and he’s dumb too. How could you want to be with him? He hardly talks. I think he’s retarded. That’s why he hangs around with that retarded kid. He isn’t -- ”

“That’s enough!” Jack roared. 

Right then, with his blood boiling so he thought he’d burst, his grip on the wheel loosened and in an instant he lost control of the Ford. The truck veered to the right, hitting the shoulder with a whine of tires and headed right toward the mountains that came down to embrace the side of the road, feet away, the side that Bobby was sitting on ready to be crushed first .... Jack wrenched the wheel back to the left, knowing in the next second he was overcorrecting, but not having a choice. Anything was better than a head-on collision with granite, but then the truck aimed toward the oncoming lane of traffic going north. Behind him he heard a horn blaring, but in front of them now was a big delivery truck, the driver’s eyes wide as he reached to try to get out of their way. Again Jack turned the wheel, fighting to control his instinct to pull it sharply and instead managing to turn it just some. On the slick road the wheels skidded anyway, and for a terrifying couple of seconds the truck wavered back and forth within the lane, until at last it straightened, the tires were humming again the right way against the road, and there wasn’t any danger any more. 

As he sat there heaving in air, in control of the truck but not of himself or of Bobby, everything about Jack burned: his pride, his anger, his face. For Bobby to be feeling such things, for him to have such an opinion of Ennis on such short knowing of him, for the truck to have come close to a serious crash with him driving. 

The dragon had got knocked off the seat while they’d swerved all over the place, and in a swift move Bobby picked it up from the floor and brushed it off. He kept it on his lap while he stared, stone-faced, out the windshield. 

“You think you got it all figured, don’t you?” Jack snapped out. “Let me tell you, you don’t.”

Bobby got revved up again in a second. “I don’t need to figure anything out! You’re living in your new house with your ... your .... And Mom died less than a month ago!”

“Look, Bobby, let me make sure you understand one thing for sure. I am not glad your Mom has passed on.” 

“Like I should believe anything you say.” 

He was going to keep his temper, at least the little of it he had left, because that’s what his own dad never had done. “You ever stop to think of that furniture in our front room? Why would she give that to us?” 

“You lied to her for all the time you were married. She must have hated you for that.”

Jack sighed; he was bone-tired and weary of this attack from the boy he’d wanted so much to come visit. “Why’re you doing this? The things your mom felt or didn’t feel .... It’s not for you to know or to say. And it’s not for you to know how it is inside a marriage either. You can’t judge from the outside.”

Bobby lifted one resentful shoulder. 

“And one more thing.” He couldn’t lie to the boy: it was true what Bobby had said, that he hadn’t wanted Bobby and he hadn’t wanted his wife. But .... “You’re not a pain to me, and I don’t want to get rid of you.” 

“Oh, yeah, right.” 

“And you haven’t given Ennis even half a chance. You didn’t spend hardly any time with him today or yesterday.” 

“Was he smarter back then? Back when you were cheating on Mom with him?”

Instead of striking out, he kept his hands to himself and his eyes fiercely on the road. “That’s enough,” he gritted out again, and he was saying that to himself as much as he was to Bobby. He wasn’t going to lash out. He resisted the urge to rub at his head for the ache that pounded there; he didn’t want to give Bobby the satisfaction of seeing what he’d reduced his dad to. 

Too late, the sun shower stopped, and he turned the wipers off. To the west, the sky was showing all blue now. The truck had taken them to where the true Moreno Valley began to open up her arms, and where the mountains retreated, giving them space. 

He just ... he just wanted to get home. 

He didn’t exchange another word with Bobby until he pulled up outside Maudie’s. That was fine with him. “You want a hamburger?” he asked before he opened the door. 

Bobby had been picking at the fur on the dragon the last ten miles. “Yeah,” he replied. 

If Jack had thought to predict it, he would have said that half the population of Eagle Nest would decide to get food from the local take-out joint that night, because of course that’s the way it seemed to be. He waited twenty solid minutes for his order, tapping his foot, rubbing at the back of his neck, caught between anger and despair. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. It felt like his brain was a bowl of jello, with not a single thought in it, and for sure not knowing how to crawl out of the hole that him and Bobby were in together. 

Once he turned in from County Road 19, he caught sight of the white Dodge Ram sitting next to the house, and as he drove closer he kept his eyes on it, ignoring his son’s fancy-pants Camaro. He brought the F-150 up onto the grass next to the Dodge, stopping with a jerk, not being gentle with the brakes one bit. He couldn’t wait to get out of the cab and opened up the door before he turned the ignition off.

The kitchen light wasn’t on when he walked in, and there wasn’t any sound of the TV coming from the back either. “Ennis?” he called, hating how he felt self-conscious doing that in front of his son. But there wasn’t an answer. Not stopping to take off his jacket, he laid out Bobby’s hamburger and fries on the table and left the rest of the food in the bag on the counter. Then without saying anything, he walked out, letting the door bang behind him. 

He walked with his eyes down, his feet moving fast across the dry grass, as the rain hadn’t reached as far as where they lived yet. He wondered if Bobby was looking out the window, watching his daddy run off this way, and what the boy was thinking of him. He didn’t fucking care. “Don’t care,” he muttered to the startled possum that squeaked at him from the low fringes of the forest. 

The stable doors were wide open, the way they usually were. Jack stepped onto the old wooden planks, feeling them give under his feet, and creak. 

“That you?” Ennis called, sticking his head out from a stall and giving Jack a look that told him he was welcome in this place he still didn’t come to often, that maybe Ennis had been hoping to see him. Then he disappeared again. 

Jack turned around and pulled the one door closed, then did the same with the other one, cutting off the fading sunlight until there was only a streak of it left peeking through the crack between the two doors. He shoved a bale of straw up against them. There. 

The rhythmic sound of a rake scraping against the dirt brought him over to where Ennis was mucking out the stall he usually kept the pinto in. For now, the horse was tethered in the passageway, his lead rein looped around a post; it seemed he was looking over the stall wall at what Ennis was doing. Jack put his hand on the brown and white pattern of his neck and then slid it off, going closer so he could lean on the wall and see what the horse was seeing. He folded his arms along the top and rested his chin on his hands. He watched Ennis raking up dirty straw and droppings, and took in the smell of horse. 

Reach, pull, release. Reach, pull, release. The move of Ennis’s shoulders under his flannel shirt, the sounds of cloth against skin, the warm exhale and inhale of man and horse and man. The horses got cared for no matter what. The rugs in their house maybe needed vacuuming, and dust might’ve built up pretty thick here and there, but this stable and the horses always got Ennis’s attention. 

It wasn’t fair, what Bobby had said about this man. It hurt Jack to know that Bobby judged Ennis harshly, that his son looked on him and didn’t see anything of the good. He didn’t know anything about Ennis, and like Jack’s mama had always said, it wasn’t right to judge a marriage from the outside. Nobody could tell how the people inside it really felt and what they were getting out of being together. 

_Yeah, marriage, Ennis,_ he said in his mind. _Two ducks quacking, you and me, but it’s the same thing as with Lureen, only so much fucking better._

Ennis paused and looked over his shoulder at Jack. “Why’d you shut the doors?” 

“Keep out the rain.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

Ennis looked like he suspected something different, but he didn’t say anything, just went back to the straw. He pushed it into more of a mound and then took the manure shovel to start dumping it into a wheelbarrow he’d brought halfway into the stall. 

Ennis wasn’t an easy man to know. He was still waters that ran real deep. Nobody really knew Ennis except Jack: not his daughters, blinded by daughter-sight, forever separated by age and affection for their daddy, and surely not his ex-wife for all their years living together, because Ennis had held back from Alma. And ... not anybody else. 

Jack breathed over the tops of his joined hands, contemplated his fella spreading out the clean straw for the pinto, and wondered how that was. How come he’d got caught by this brown-eyed sphinx up on Brokeback? How come they’d fit together like hands in the perfect pair of gloves, like that fine pair of work gloves Ennis had bought him that time in Fort Worth? Jack Twist the excitable one, the talker, the dreamer, and Ennis Del Mar the cautious one, who Jack had to work on for two weeks to get more than a sentence or two from, who was afraid to have any dreams past getting food on the table. But they’d fit all ways, Ennis sliding into his ass and his life the same, just right. It’d been more than easy, it’d been a force too big for Jack to fight against.

It was wrong for Bobby to say that about Ennis. He wasn’t dumb. He had his own way of thinking, true, and was so stubborn sometimes he could get a mule to cry in frustration. And he was quiet, the kind of quiet that soothed Jack, was soothing him now, and that made a space for him close to Ennis, but that maybe other people thought meant Ennis had nothing going on between his ears. That wasn’t true, because Jack knew how strongly Ennis thought on things, how he felt, how the imaginings of his fear had rampaged through him so as to damn near ruin both their lives. But that hadn’t happened. He’d risen above that. 

And he was good with animals, the best with horses, and he was trying hard with everything, his own horses, and the job with the Buckminsters, and this way they were trying to live. Lots of stops and starts, pretty huge stop there last month, but since then .... Real good. 

And now, here was Bobby, putting himself into the middle of it.

Ennis finished pouring feed into the manger, put down the pail, and took off his gloves. He shoved them into his back pocket and walked across the new straw to where Jack was next to the pinto, coming right up to the wall that separated them. Jack straightened as he came close, and then Ennis gently took Jack’s chin in his hand. 

“What’s the matter, huh?” he asked quietly. Without waiting for an answer, he brought their lips together over the top of the wall. 

Ennis tasted dry, and a little cold, and smelled of sweat and leather. Jack relaxed into the kiss. He guessed this was their end-of-the-day, haven’t-seen-you-for-a-while kiss, but it was also a this-wasn’t-a-good-day and an I-need-you kind of kiss, from both of them, for each of them. Not the kind of kiss they’d shared during their years in the mountains, but the kind of kiss that they had now that they were together, made of nights spent in a bed they called their own and mornings making coffee and squabbles over their kitchen table and evenings watching bad made-for-TV movies. Time together gave them a kiss like this one right now, that made Jack close his eyes. 

Ennis drew away first, but Jack brought their faces back together in their old way. He thought about Andy knowing and what he’d said, and about how Ennis must be feeling to have Fancy taken away, but it was all he’d hoped of the weekend that weighed heaviest on him. Ennis must be sick of Jack and his troubles with Lureen, with his boy, but here he was, and who else was there for Jack, anyway? “Bobby’s a shithead,” he whispered. 

That surprised a chuckle from his fella. “You don’t say,” Ennis puffed against his cheekbones. 

“Yeah. He .... ” Jack pulled back a little. He had to be careful, because he didn’t want to turn Ennis against Bobby in a way that he couldn’t turn back away from. “He’s still all wrought up about Lureen, and I should’ve realized. He’s stuck in thinking how she must’ve felt on figuring out about me, and how I cheated on her.” 

“Damn.” 

“Yeah. He’ll get over it.” Jack looked away, not willing to show his eyes while saying something he wasn’t sure was true. “He’s back at the house. I guess he needed some quiet time.” 

“You too.” 

It was too hard talking about this. “I’m here because I like watching you work, Del Mar.” 

“The hell you say,” Ennis said with the hint of a smile. He threw a glance in the direction of the closed doors and then bravely said, “You like watching me bend over, I think.” 

It was Jack’s turn to have a laugh pulled out of him. “How’s your leg?”

“It’s okay.” 

“You want some ice on it?”

Ennis came around to the aisle and went over to the other side of the pinto, who greeted him with a soft whicker. “Not unless you’ve got some in your back pocket. I’m thinking more of dinner instead of ice anyway. You bring some food home?”

“Yeah, it’s waiting for us in the kitchen.”

“You can go ahead and eat if you want to. I’ve still got a few things to tend to here.” 

“No, that’s all right. I’ll wait for you.” 

“Okay, suit yourself.”

Ennis reached over to the little shelf where he kept some supplies at easy reach, picked through what was there and came up with a comb. He blew on it, took a hunk of horse mane in his hands, and started to run the comb through. 

Jack stayed where he was on the other side of the horse, content to watch the occasional glimpse of Ennis’s fingers and the bobbing of his head. He wished that Ennis would start humming, because he did that sometimes, but he doubted that it would happen tonight. 

“I think O’Hara’s a shithead too,” he said after a while.

Ennis was working high on the horse’s neck now, untangling knots. “I’ll say,” he said, his voice tight like a drum.

“What’s wrong with him, anyway?” Jack fiddled with long strands of white and dark brown mane that he flipped over to his side. He remembered that talk he’d witnessed in the afternoon, the set look on Ennis’s face hiding a world of hurt. Jack had a grievance against the old man, damned if he didn’t. “It doesn’t make sense to me, not giving you a chance with his other horse and taking the palomino away. Crazy old asshole. Somebody should shoot him and put him out of his misery.”

“I wanted to. But I had the boy .... ” 

“Would’ve been a mercy anyway.”

“You saw how he looked, one foot in the grave. He ain’t gonna last long.” 

“That’s no reason for him to take -- ”

“Anybody looking would say it’s his horse. He can do what he wants with her.”

Jack tugged on the horsehair, not hard. “Well, any reason is a piss-poor one if you ask me, and especially what we both know is the real reason. Who you sleep with doesn’t make any difference to how good a horse trainer you are. There’s probably hundreds of people who saw you today with that bull, saw how good you rode Samson, and if you had those business cards already I bet I could’ve handed out all of them and got plenty of business.” 

“I doubt it. That ain’t the way it’s gonna be, I figure.” 

“Not everybody who gives you a horse will care one way or the other.” 

“But it’s better if I figure they will. That way, no bad surprises.”

Welcome to The World According to Ennis Del Mar, but Jack didn’t know that he could blame him for it this day. No bad surprises. But the day had been full of them. He couldn’t take any more. 

Ennis moved up to the horse’s forelock that flowed down between his eyes, the pinto’s an especially long, pure white one. It was already soft and beautiful, but maybe that was because Ennis brushed it every day. Jack watched how he did it now with such care even though storms were showing in his eyes. 

“Fuck him,” Ennis said suddenly, the words bursting out of him as if they’d grown too big to hold inside.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck him to hell and back.”

“Not back, leave him in hell.” 

“I’ll be glad to be rid of his horse too.” 

“Fancy’s not worth the time you put into her.” 

That seemed to give Ennis pause. “Not saying that. I got paid good for the training, you know. But she’s poor-spirited.” 

“Like O’Hara is. Craphead bastard, talking like that to you at the fair. He could’ve done it some other way.” 

“Yeah. Was wrong of him to talk so in front of the boy too.” 

“I saw that. What’d he ... ” Jack thought of not asking, but .... “What’d he say to you?”

_Swish, swish, swish,_ the sound of the brush through the forelock. The pinto must have the straightest hair in the state by now, but Ennis kept going at it. “Not ... not all that bad,” he grated out. 

“What?” 

“Mainly he went on how Rocky and Betty Jo served him a bad turn and never should’ve told him anything good about me. That’s most of what he said, really, going after them hard, because he wasn’t willing to say much about me to my face. Except he did say that the likes of me belonged in Taos, or a city, not the valley.”

_Fucking whoreson of a dickhead. They could live where they pleased._

“Sonuvabitch,” Jack said, with meaning. 

“Yeah. Sonuvabitch.”

“Plus he shouldn’t of said anything about his parents in front of Davey.” 

“That’s what I said. I told him Davey understood plenty, and he ought to apologize to him for talking so about his folks.”

“You did? You’re kidding.” 

“Nope.” With a final comb-through, Ennis finished with the forelock and moved down toward the tail, though he paused to look at Jack across the pinto’s broad back. “And he did. He asked Davey’s pardon the way he should have.” 

“But not yours.” 

“Nope.” 

The horse’s tail was swishing back and forth as if asking for attention. Ennis went there, lifting a long section and going at it with his head down, concentrating, looking like he was wrestling something inside.

These two days hadn’t worked out how Jack had planned, that was for sure, and maybe it was true that things with Bobby were going to hell in a handbasket, like how he’d worried and wondered in that long night when he hadn’t slept. Maybe Bobby wasn’t going to get over things easily. But like he’d told himself on that night, Ennis was still here.

The sight of his fella choked him, because it was good, what he’d wanted, and here it was, almost more than he could bear to have, so he sent his seeing down to the floor, to his own sturdy shoes and the pinto’s hooves. Andy wanted him to leave this, to follow the narrow path of the righteous, to throw this gift back in God’s face: Ennis, here. 

Fuck Andy along with O’Hara. Jack would talk to him on Monday and make sure there was no way in heaven or earth that there was any chance Ennis would ever find out that Andy was on to them. He was going to add that to his list of things he was holding back and not telling Ennis, because there was no fucking way he was going to risk this. This gift. 

*****

Jack walked with Ennis through the dark back to their house. The kitchen light was glowing through the window, and from the flickering, it seemed the front TV was on. Ennis went in first and headed to the bag of food on the counter. He sent a look toward where Bobby was sitting in the living room and muttered, “I’m taking this to the back room. Get me a beer, would you?”

“Sure.” 

Bobby’s half-eaten sandwich was balanced on the arm of the new chair from Lureen. He was holding the remote out as if he was ready to change the channel any second. Once Ennis was gone he said, “Hi,” sounding small, nothing like the ten-foot-tall boy he’d been, set on avenging his mom’s memory. 

“Hi,” Jack said back shortly as he opened the refrigerator. All the beers were still there, and one more Dr Pepper was missing. He grabbed a Corona and a Bud, straightened, closed the fridge door and set them on the counter. He opened up the drawer where they kept such things and pulled out a plastic bag. Over on the other side of the kitchen he checked their supply of towels, took one from the cabinet, and brought it back to the counter, smoothing it out flat. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Getting some ice for Ennis’s leg.” He pulled out an ice cube tray, dumped the cubes in the bag and rolled it up in the towel. Then he filled his hands with the beers. “That enough food for you?” he asked, not only because he wanted to prove he cared for Bobby.

“I’m okay,” Bobby said. 

“How’s the reception on that TV?”

“Haven’t you seen it yourself?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope, just to try it out once. We watch the other one.” 

“It’s fine here.” 

“Okay.”

In the back room, Ennis was sitting in the chair with the TV on but the sound off. His right foot was propped up on the castoff chair from the kitchen that they still hadn’t fixed. Jack plopped the ice bag into his lap, just missing his spread-out sandwich, making him yelp and curse, but the next minute his jeans were pushed up enough to apply it to a dark bruise on the meat of his calf. Jack set himself down on the couch, pulling off his shoes and putting both his feet up on the edge of the chair’s cushion, not by coincidence with the soles of his stockinged feet pushed against Ennis’s thigh. Ennis looked down at the hole in the toe of his left sock. 

“I see you got fries and onion rings,” he said, passing Jack’s food over.

“I thought you liked rings.” 

“They’re okay, but we don’t need both.” 

“I like both.” 

Ennis bit into his sandwich. “I like it better when we cook.”

“I know,” Jack said.

Jack tried not to think of Bobby, alone in the living room, what felt like a whole ocean away. Instead he watched Mike Hammer the private eye beat people up without making a sound, sat, and ate. The sandwich was pretty good, with the right amount of mayonnaise, though the fries weren’t as crisp as he was used to from Maudie’s kitchen. Ennis must’ve been hungry, because the sandwich disappeared in a hurry. 

“You want this last ring?” Ennis asked him. 

Jack dug his toes into Ennis’s thigh. 

“Hey there!” Ennis tried to move away, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go. He relaxed and they were back touching again. 

“No, you take it.” 

Jack wadded up the packaging and stuffed it into the bag, and then he leaned over and did the same with the leftover paper from Ennis’s food. He slouched down against the cushion and folded his hands across his stomach, turning his head around to stare at the silent moving pictures on the screen. There was a commercial for Pine-Sol cleaner on. By the time it switched to one for the new Toyota pick-up, Jack felt Ennis’s hand on his foot, slowly rubbing back and forth over his sock, along the sole, up to the top, across the ankle. 

“I’m sorry about Fancy,” Jack said. “Not that I think it was my fault exactly, but -- ”

He stopped when movement caught his eye: Bobby was standing in the doorway, looking over at them uncertainly. Jack felt keenly how they were sitting, felt Ennis’s hand leave his ankle abruptly. 

“Dad?”

Jack stomped on his urge to move his feet away and sit up straight. The hell with it. “Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you?” 

He saw Bobby’s gaze flick from him to Ennis and back again, but he wasn’t inclined to give the boy even one inch of slack. Whatever Bobby wanted to say, he was going to have to say it in front of both of them, because that’s how things were. Jack wasn’t going to pretend any other way. 

“All right. Come on in.” 

The boy came in reluctantly and stopped when he got to the middle of the room, a good eight feet away from them. With his hands by his sides, he fixed his eyes on Jack.

“I’ve .... I’ve been thinking I should go home tomorrow.” 

Jack didn’t move; in truth, those words paralyzed him. He’d lost Bobby, all because he’d been a fool and got on his son because of that Buckminster kid. The boy probably never would have said anything about Lureen or about Ennis if Jack hadn’t jumped on him .... 

But Ennis moved. He brought his feet down to the floor, the ice bag coming loose from the towel and sliding off with a wet plop onto their braided oval rug. He leaned forward and said, “No, don’t go.”

The boy didn’t seem to pay him any mind at all. “I’ve been thinking, though, that if I do drive home tomorrow, that would be ... that would be it, wouldn’t it?” It seemed to Jack that the boy was desperately seeking his eyes now. “I mean you and me, Dad.” 

Slowly, Jack brought his own legs down and sat up. “I don’t aim to ever quit on us, because you’re my son. I love you, Bobby. But you said some hard things to me.” 

“I know.” Bobby bit his lip. “You know I don’t get on with Granddad. But he’s always saying that a man has to face up to his responsibilities. He was saying that on Wednesday, that I shouldn’t come to see you, because he says it’s a responsibility for decent people to stay away from fag ... from gay people.” 

Christ. Jack stood up. He’d been dumb enough to think that they’d crossed all these bridges already. “You want to stay away from me? I told you before, I’m the same as I’ve been, Bobby.” 

“No, you aren’t. I understand things about you now that I didn’t before, you and Mom and me .... ” Bobby sent a swift look toward Ennis, who was still as a stone. “But even if you’re not the dad I thought I had, you’re the only dad I do have. See?” 

“I don’t want you to go tomorrow, son.” 

“I .... ” For a second, his lower lip trembled. “Granddad says a man can’t be a coward. If I go, then I guess I’m running away.”

“Don’t run, Bobby,” Ennis’s deep voice came as he looked up at the boy. “Running doesn’t solve anything. A man has got to face things the way they are.” 

“I know. I mean, I know you’re right. So, I guess I’ll stay, Dad. I guess it’s my responsibility to stay, though Granddad wouldn’t see it that way.”

Jack forced himself to aim a smile at the boy, though it was a pitiful, small one. “No, I don’t imagine he would.” 

“Our family’s so small. I don’t have any aunts or uncles or cousins, and I don’t know your parents hardly at all. I don’t count the Montcriefs. They’re nice but they’re Charlie’s family, not mine. So .... ” Bobby heaved in a breath, “ ... with Mom gone, it’s just Granddad and Grandmom and you and me.” 

“I guess you got a raw deal with family, son.” 

“Yeah. I guess I did.” The boy stuck his hands in his pockets. “So, I was wondering, does anybody want any ice cream? There’s some left.” 

Bobby went to get it, and Jack sat down, feeling like maybe he’d been pushed out of an airplane and had managed to land pretty safe, bruised and bloodied here and there, but he was still walking. Only now did he feel how tense he’d got, and know how end-of-the-world he would’ve felt if Bobby had left early. 

He looked over at Ennis, who was sitting hunched over, holding his beer bottle loosely in his hand, staring at it. Not much had been settled, but enough that the three of them could stay in the same room together, awkward though Jack knew the rest of the night would be. He had one more whole day, almost taken away without his knowing, given back because his son had listened to L.D. Could the world get any more confusing? And what could he do to make that one day count the way it needed to? 

“I’m going back up to Red River tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll take Bobby with me. I think there’s a flatbed trailer up there I can get us for free, maybe pick up a few other things that are left over from the auction that can be some use around here.”

“Okay,” Ennis said, and he brought the beer to his lips. 

“You got any plans for tomorrow?”

“Work with the horses.” 

“Then I’ve got an idea. How about we go for a ride in the afternoon, the three of us? Bobby on Jigger, he’s a good horse, should carry him okay though he’s not much of a rider. Me on Dawn and you on Trouble.” 

Ennis shook his head. “I don’t know .... ”

“Ennis. Please.” Jack put real asking into his voice. 

Ennis looked over at him, serious, intent. “You think it’ll help?” 

“Yeah, I do.” 

“Okay then, we’ll do that, but I don’t know how it’ll change anything. Your own son doesn’t see you .... ” Ennis took in a breath. “He sees you the same as O’Hara sees me, doesn’t he? Not ... what’s there, not all the rest of us. All they see is ... this thing we’ve got between us. Fuck seeing just that.” 

Jack could hear Bobby rooting around in their kitchen opening up drawers, probably looking for where the spoons were kept. “Yeah, fuck that,” Jack said. “But I can’t not try. I don’t have a choice, you know that.” If he had enough of a chance, tomorrow and the next visit and the year after that and all the years to follow, he’d make Bobby see all of him ... and that the thing between him and Ennis should be respected like the feeling between a man and a woman, no different, the way he’d told Andy. 

“I know you’ve got to try,” said Ennis. “Same as I’d do if it was my girls.”

“And one more thing.” 

“What’s that?”

“You make dinner tomorrow. He’ll think I was bullshitting him back in Childress if you don’t come up with something good.”

Ennis’s head bobbed. “All right, I can do that. Let me think on it.” 

The TV was still going in its soundless way, showing Mike Hammer driving down a dark road. Jack sat back against the cushion, waited for Bobby to show up with the ice cream, a peace offering, and let his tiredness crash in on him. He thought about putting his feet back up next to Ennis but didn’t do it, not because of what Bobby might see or think or care about, but because he was just too weary to move that much.

“Helluva day,” Ennis said. 

Yeah, a helluva day.

*****  



	4. Water Running Free

Tuesday, September 25, 1984  
Ennis had told himself to wake up earlier than usual. He intended to put in a full day’s work for the Buckminsters even though he’d have to leave the ranch that afternoon sooner than he did most days. Plus he had things to do this morning too. He slipped out of bed to the tune of Jack’s snores, pleased that where the bull had kicked him on the leg didn’t ache any more, and went out to tend to the horses in the pitch dark and cold air. He’d started leaving an old quilted flannel shirt on a nail in the stable, and he slipped it on instead of shivering. The hours before sunrise were chilly even for him. Then it was back to the house where he set the coffee to brewing. 

He pulled the birthday card and envelope out of the bag, put them on the clean kitchen table, and took up a pen. It was now or never, like Alma used to say, though he’d never done stuff like this for her. Well, there was a reason for that. He’d never wanted to. This was different. 

He tried to read what he’d bought but he couldn’t, so he got his glasses from where he’d left them the night before in the back room. Back in the kitchen, the words came clear. What was on the card wasn’t right, but then he’d spent twenty minutes in front of the display, feeling like a dumbass, and nothing he picked up was what he was looking for. He’d made do. This one had a photo of lit candles on the front, sending an orangey glow across the page, real nice he thought, and a whole lot better than hearts or flowers or even worse. Not that he’d expected to find a card from one queer man to another queer man. He didn’t know what one of those would have on it that he’d be okay with anyway. 

Ennis leaned over the paper, knowing he had to write something but nothing occurring at the moment. He’d be real disappointed with himself if he didn’t do something today to cheer Jack up. That visit with Bobby hadn’t gone too good. Last night when Ennis had finally got back from his trip to Taos, where he’d been getting ready for today, Jack had been quiet. He hadn’t even asked where Ennis had been or what he’d been doing, and didn’t tease the way Ennis had figured he would. Seemed when dad and son had said good-bye that morning, when Bobby had left to go back to Texas, things hadn’t been made any better. Ennis had decided maybe he better not ask for particulars right then. 

They’d gone to bed and Jack had rolled over toward him, wanting Ennis butted up against him. That was all he wanted. Ennis had let himself be held and thought over things, like how he almost wished Jack hadn’t done so fine with his birthday ten days before, cause then he wouldn’t be trying to do as well. And wondering how come this was how it was working out, the two of them making such a fuss when they were just two guys, like Ennis had shouted at Jack one of the nights they’d fought, just two guys fucking one another. 

In the glow of the overhead kitchen light, Ennis shook his head as if to get rid of the notion. He wondered if Jack remembered him saying that. It wasn’t true, and he guessed that times like birthdays made a man think on what he had and be grateful for it. 

The pen was getting chewed on so hard while he thought that of a sudden Ennis found the cap in his mouth. He almost choked trying not to swallow the thing, he was that surprised. He finally spit it out onto the floor, then got up and ran himself a glass of water that he downed in one go. Okay, back to business. He wanted to cheer Jack up, right? Then he figured he knew what he’d write. 

When he was done he read it all the way through, hardly believing he was doing this and considering for a couple seconds tearing it up and throwing it in the trash. Jack would never know the difference. But Ennis’d had this idea of how to go about the day, and he wasn’t gonna stop now. 

Damn, he hoped Jack didn’t laugh at him or think he was some sort of pansy-ass. Maybe he should have got the other card he’d thought was okay, cause this one was sort of .... Yeah, sort of pansy-ass.

Working his teeth against the inside of his cheek, Ennis stuck the card in the envelope anyway, and then he wrote _JACK_ on it. Maybe it wasn’t as good as it should be, maybe it wasn’t big enough. 

He got up, feeling like a weight was still on his shoulders, and tucked his glasses in his pocket. He opened the side door and in the dark walked outside in the chill to Jack’s pick-up, trying to be quiet against the pebbles, noting the dark bulk of the mower and other equipment that Jack had brought home from the fair scattered over the yard. When he got to the truck, the card didn’t want to stay up against the steering wheel, and Ennis cursed as he propped it up only to see it fall to the floor. That card wouldn’t do his man any good at all if it wasn’t seen, and how would Jack feel, thinking Ennis hadn’t even bothered with a card? He finally got the idea to wedge it into the crack where the horn was, standing it upright. Blowing on it didn’t move it then, and flipping it with his finger didn’t either. He guessed that was all right. No way Jack could miss this. No matter how he might be thinking on Bobby, he’d have to be blind not to see it. Okay, then. 

Back in the house, he’d meant to leave after filling his thermos, but he’d left his wallet on his nightstand. He didn’t fight being drawn toward the bedroom where Jack was. There still wasn’t any sign of the sun shining through the windows when he walked in, but he’d put on the living room light and it came in from the open door. 

Jack was wearing a t-shirt with a dark coffee stain up by the collar, sprawled on his back with one arm over his stomach and the other stretched out on Ennis’s side of the bed, with the sheet drifted up to his waist. His mouth was open a little, and a soft snore came out every four or five breaths. With his moustache, the lines in his face that Ennis knew he’d had a hand putting there, and with those snores, there was no mistaking that here was a grown man in his bed, what he’d fought against for years. Ennis spent more than a second or two standing over him, taking him in, feeling something familiar growing inside that he used to not understand. Or pretend that he didn’t understand. 

He shouldn’t break up that peaceful sleeping. But maybe this could be better than a card. Those were only words, but here he was. He found a space next to Jack’s hip and settled on the mattress. 

“Wake up, lazy bum.” 

It wasn’t a hardship to watch his man come aware, the fluttering of those long eyelashes that Ennis had never teased him about. In the old days up on the mountain, he’d stared at them, trying to figure out why he wanted to look at Jack so much, and telling himself how peculiar it was for a fella to have eyelashes like that. That’s why he sneaked glances. Now Jack’s tongue came out and traveled over his lips. Especially on this day when Ennis was set to really take note of his forty-year man, he liked what he saw. 

Was the sudden light in Jack’s eyes because he hadn’t awakened alone like usual, or because he’d figured right away that this was something to do with his birthday? Ennis didn’t mind either one. 

“Happy birthday,” he said, aware this was the first time he’d said such a thing to Jack. 

Jack smiled up at him. “You remembered.” 

He reached out and flicked his thumb against Jack’s cheek. “What do you think I was doing out last night?”

Jack shrugged, his shoulders moving against the pillow. Then he sat up, pushing himself back against the headboard with his legs straight out. “Signing up for the rodeo next year?” 

“That’ll be the day. Listen, you’re gonna come home tonight like usual, right?” 

“Yeah, I was planning to. Why?” 

“Just thought I’d say that’s what you should do.”

Jack didn’t even make some smart remark about what Ennis had going or why he cared about the timing. “I lost hours at work because of Bobby being here. I’m behind on everything, but I guess I can make it up later on. Not that me missing did much good, the way things worked out with him.”

“Don’t you worry about Bobby right now, ain’t the right time.”

“I don’t know, Ennis, he -- ”

“Hey,” Ennis said with some intent. “What’d I say?”

It took Jack twice as long as normal to make a smile, and it wasn’t that big. “Okay.”

“It’s your day, bud.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll come straight home after work.” 

“Don’t come too early.” 

“Not too early, not too late.” 

“Good.” Ennis went to get up for his wallet, but Jack pulled him back down with a hand on his wrist. 

“Don’t leave so soon. How about a birthday kiss?” 

“I have to go to work.” 

Jack made a disgusted noise. “I’m not asking for -- ” he started, but Ennis interrupted him by leaning forward to put a finger under his chin, lifting up his face, and bringing their lips together. 

He didn’t mean all that much by it -- Jack had asked, he wasn’t really sorry to oblige -- but then he remembered the way Jack had kissed him on his birthday, and how it had made him feel that night after they’d had soundless whiskey toasts. Yeah, that’d been a birthday kiss he’d got then. Not one that would lead to them rolling around on the mattress together, where he wouldn’t think of much past shooting his load. Not a hello in the evening kiss, almost automatic now, a settling-in and a coming-home. 

Ennis shifted around and brought his hands up to Jack’s shoulders, softened his lips so this was a giving-kiss, and a keep-your-mind-off-your-boy-today kiss, and a I-wish-I-could-thank-your-mama-for-having-you kiss. He started it gently, barely touching, and Jack hummed like he appreciated it so he kept it that way, his mouth closed but just about everything else in him opening up. When it was finally over, Ennis felt dizzy. 

Jack was looking at him with such big eyes, like he was drugged or something, and was holding onto him with both hands around his sides. Ennis couldn’t think of one thing to say. 

Of course, Jack could. “Shit,” he breathed. “That was worth getting woke up for. Guess there’s no chance of any more of that.”

Ennis went with what he knew best. “Not right now. Gotta go, bud.” 

“Okay, see you tonight.” 

“Right.” 

Ennis let him go, not hard to do anymore since there was always the promise of more, not months between touching, and got up, tucked in his shirt, and went out to the living room. 

Where he turned himself around and went back in to where Jack was laying himself back down and pulling up the sheet. He walked over to the nightstand, grabbed his wallet, and walked out, thinking that kissing Jack Twist just wasn’t safe. 

*****

Work at the Buckminster ranch wasn’t like usual, cause Rocky was gone, taking Tag to some rehab center to get him off the drugs. Betty Jo wandered around the ranch like she was lost and didn’t have any clue of what to do with herself, made worse since Davey was spending the day with Maria and she was on her own. Ennis figured maybe Floyd’s sister thought she was doing Betty Jo a favor, but it was like the woman had lost her grounding. She hiked up to the mares’ stable in the early afternoon and asked Ennis if she could help out, like she was some extra hand looking for a job instead of the owner of the spread.

“You don’t have to,” he said from deep in the stall they stored tack in, where he was trying to decide if they needed to order new lunge lines.

“I’m sure there’s something around here I can do right,” she said, reminding him of Alma with her bitterness.

He stayed silent, feeling things were turned around now and he had no place telling her anything. It wasn’t his job to make her feel better about her son doing dope. That was Rocky’s to do. Ennis didn’t know what was best. 

When he came out of the stall he said, “If you turn out the mares this afternoon, I can get a half hour more with the young ones.” 

The look she gave him said thank you. Before she turned away, he said, “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking off early today. I’ll make sure everything’s in order before I leave.” 

She turned her eyes on him something fierce. “Mind? Ennis, after what you did for our son, you could take off the whole month and that would be all right with me.” 

“It wasn’t much. Just doing my job.”

“If I’d done my job as a mother, you wouldn’t have had to pull my son off that bull.”

He resettled his hat and left it on lower down, shading his face. “I don’t know about that.” 

“I do.” Her neck was splotched with red marks, spreading as she got all worked up. “I’ve been selfish, and negligent, and not the mother that I should have been.”

He wanted to say that the way he looked at it, Davey needed special care that she gave him, and that she was doing pretty good in that direction. But what did he know, anyway? He stayed quiet and listened as she went on.

“I let my own ... my own selfish desires and my stupid pride come first before the needs of my oldest son. If I’d only had my eyes open, I would have seen that Tag was crying out for attention and guidance and ... and ... and wisdom.” 

“I don’t know much about wisdom,” Ennis offered, “but I don’t think many seventeen-year-olds put stock in it.” 

“Yes, but ....” Betty Jo seemed about to start off again but caught herself and gave a small laugh instead. “I’m sorry,” she said plainly, the way she always spoke. “You don’t want to hear this, and I have no right to impose my emotions on you. I’ll go do what I’m told like a good girl.” 

She turned around and then said, over her shoulder, “You take off whenever you need to, Ennis.” 

He didn’t feel right about her giving him that much. It made the spot between his shoulder blades itch, and so he stayed an extra fifteen minutes past when he’d fixed to leave. He spun wheels, though, when he pulled out from in front of the two story house, and slowed down right away when he told himself it wouldn’t do to get another speeding ticket. The cops must be earning money for the county with speed traps or something, the way they were always on the road. 

Five minutes later, he steered straight down their drive to the stable, where he’d stashed Jack’s gift the night before. It’d crossed his mind to ask Floyd to store it at his house on Huggins Road, cause it was close and no way would Jack see it there, but Ennis felt uncomfortable even thinking such a thing, much less doing it. Even though Floyd knew about him and Jack being together, there wasn’t any need to pull anybody into their own personal business, friend or no friend, and that was that. The whole conversation in his head had lasted maybe five seconds, but it had echoed for a lot longer than that and was echoing still, the notion that somebody like Floyd could be included in their tiny circle of him and Jack, Jack and him, that’d gone round and round for all these years, nobody else included .... 

But, no, the gift was in the back stall where he’d hauled it last night after coming back from Taos with it and the card. It was no worse for passing the night with a horse blanket thrown over it. True, there was a little horsehair on it here and there, and he spent some time picking it off, thinking he should have brought a sheet down from the house instead. Then he pulled and pushed and shoved it out to where the Ram was, not cursing at all that it was damn heavy, cause after all this was for Jack’s birthday. It took a heave and all his strength to get it up into the truck bed. Then he drove back up to the house and had to turn the thing sideways to get it in through the door. He righted it in the kitchen and was relieved it was okay, and then he pushed it through the house to the doorway of the back room where he had to do it all over again.

But finally it was where it needed to be, and when he stepped back to look at it, it did look okay to his eyes. He still wasn’t sure this was what it needed to be for Jack. What the hell did a man get his ... his .... What was he supposed to get Jack for his birthday, anyway? He’d thought on it a lot, but it was like the card: nothing was right. He’d had to make do. What he’d got, he’d thought maybe it was a step toward giving Jack back the kind of fine life he’d had before, but it was probably too much for a birthday, sure as hell cost more than he’d wanted to spend, and Jack wouldn’t like it anyway. It wasn’t something that was just right, like his boots from Jack had been. Ennis brooded, chewed on his thumb, and finally gave up. Nothing of what he’d done was probably right, but it was all he’d been able to think of, and maybe Jack would see that. He wasn’t used to doing stuff like this. 

He walked swiftly through the house and straight into the bathroom, where he dropped his clothes in the hamper and then took up the other thing he’d got at that drug store with the card, a Fleet’s enema box. It was probably the hardest thing he’d done all year, paying for that at the counter. But he’d done it, and by God he was gonna use it, and he did, cause they weren’t kids up on the mountain anymore with not much other choice. He’d seen those little ads for such things in the back of that _Stallion_ magazine. He figured this was something maybe those other gay men that Jack had been with did regularly, when they had something more than hands and mouths in mind. It wasn’t bad, cramping over in a minute or two and then it was done with.

After that he took a shower, washing his hair so fast that he got suds in his eyes, enough to make them sting. He’d never used shampoo for hair-washing, soap being more than good enough, at least until he’d taken up house with Jack Twist. Jack came complete with a tight ass, a pile-driver dick, and this sweet-smelling shampoo. Ennis wiped the stuff out of his eyes with one hand and spared the other to give his dick a tug, only once, since he wasn’t gonna waste it on his own, that was for sure. 

Dripping, he walked naked from the bathroom to the bedroom with a towel in hand, sparing a quick glance outside the front window to make sure there wasn’t a pick-up coming down the road yet. He dressed in a rush, not letting himself think on the clothes being put on. 

He sat up from tying his best pair of shoes, feeling the rush of blood from his head, and clapped his hands on his knees. One more thing to do. Under his stack of undershorts and the three t-shirts he kept for winter nights, and then under the cards that Jack had given him, he fished out the last thing. He held it up to the afternoon light and frowned at it. He thought it was okay. It was the one thing he did feel sort of good on, but it wasn’t good enough either, and he knew that too. Well, what would be good enough, huh? He dropped it down to the bed and angrily walked over to the window, checking again like he was some kid on Christmas morning and not a grown man, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t like this, not one bit. He was trying, but he’d never done any of this shit the right way his whole life, and what the hell did Jack expect of him anyway? This whole birthday thing was dumb, and if he had his way they wouldn’t be doing this at all. Fuck on it. Fuck. 

It took a couple minutes for him to calm down, but he managed it. He’d gone to a heap of trouble to make this right and drummed up courage to do it at all, and he wasn’t gonna back out now. He picked up that last thing he wanted Jack to have. The back room was where the real gift was, so he went there and put this one where it needed to be. 

And that was it. There wasn’t anything more to do except wait and worry, wondering if Jack would be his old self when he came home or if Bobby-thoughts would weigh him down. Ennis went to sit down at the kitchen table, noting that his good shoes had left two scuff marks on the linoleum, and then for the first time he saw that there was something standing up on the table. The card he’d given Jack in the morning. 

His heart sort of banged sideways in his chest. Jack must have put it there. 

Ennis didn’t have anything else to do. After a minute or two he pulled his glasses out, picked the card up and read it over again, letting himself wonder how Jack had taken the words and whether it’d been okay. 

_This is what today is for:  
To dream like you never have before_

Ennis pinched the bridge of his nose. It really was sort of sappy. But he hadn’t been able to find anything in between sappy and I-barely-know-you-have-a-good-day. He’d thought this one would work cause of that dreaming bit. For years he’d called Jack a dreamer, and not in a kind way either. He hadn’t done it lately. 

He opened up the card and kept reading. 

_And if you ever doubt,_  
 _As you blow the candles out,_  
 _That wishes can come true,_  
 _They do._

_Cause I have you._

Awww, shit. That was bad enough, but he must have been some crazy man that morning, cause under the printed words he’d scrawled

_If you think I’ll write_  
 _Love_  
 _Ennis_  
 _then your wrong_

And under that he’d drawn the closest he could come to .... Cause he’d had it in his mind to cheer Jack up and ....

He squinted at it, tilting his head to the side. Did that look like a duck? Would Jack have got what he was aiming at with that? There hadn’t been a card in the whole drug store where he’d gone that’d had a duck picture on it, except the one that Jack had already got him, and he wasn’t gonna do a repeat. 

Sighing, he put the card back where it’d been. 

A minute later he heard the sound of a truck turning into the drive. Jack was early some but that was okay, cause the timing was still gonna work out. Ennis stood up and faced the door, feeling dumb to be nervous, cause it was just Jack. 

The truck door slammed, the gravel scrunched under footsteps, the screen opened ... and there came a knocking on the inside door. 

“Is this the right time for you?” Jack’s voice came through the wood. “You going to let me in or do I have to stand out here in the rain?” 

Ennis walked fast over to the door and yanked it open. “You shithead,” he growled in Jack’s face. “It’s your own house. And it ain’t raining. Those clouds’ll pass.” 

Jack didn’t seem to pay what he was saying any mind at all. He took a step back, holding the screen open with an outstretched hand, and sent his eyes traveling over what Ennis was wearing, down and then up and then over again. He whistled. 

“I guess it must be my birthday, because you sure do look fine in that suit.” 

Ennis looked down at himself, feeling like a cigar-store Indian going to some fancy dance in the gray suit he’d bought at J.C. Penney. “We gotta dress up,” he said roughly. “Come on in here and take a shower, would you?” He turned around and headed for the table again. Then he remembered and did a U-turn over toward the back room. He closed the door to it with a thump. “You can’t go in here.”

“I wasn’t planning to.” Jack stood in the kitchen until Ennis came toward him. 

“What?”

Jack grabbed him by the lapels of his suit coat and pulled him close, face to face, smacked a loud kiss on his lips, and then released him. “Quack,” he said with a grin. “Quack, quack.” 

Well, guess that meant he’d drawn the duck okay. Maybe that’d been all right to do after all. “Shut up.” 

Jack pulled his shirts off over his head right where he was standing and went in for another quick kiss. “You,” he said, kiss, “are the best looking,” kiss, “duck I’ve ever seen.” Kiss, kiss, and Jack’s hands were all over his ass. “Come take a shower with me. Been thinking of getting my duck under water all day.” 

He shook his head but didn’t have much heart for separating them. He pulled Jack into a strong bear hug, wishing he was bare-chested too. “Can’t,” he said over Jack’s shoulder.

“Ah, come on,” Jack sort of purred, cutting into Ennis’s determination with lips against his neck. “I sure wouldn’t mind getting you out of that suit right now.” 

Ennis shoved him away. “What we’re aiming for is to get you in a suit, not get me out of one. Come on, get a move on.” 

“Okay, okay.” Jack worked at his belt buckle and zipped himself open. “Where are we going? Are you going to tell me?” 

“Out to eat.” 

“Where?”

“Get your ass in gear and you’ll find out.” 

“Asshole.”

“Dumbass.” 

Jack disappeared into the bathroom and Ennis went over to the window, staring out at the moving leaves of the forest and thinking that had gone pretty good. Jack was here now, and things were better. 

Seeing Jack: that did the trick for him, same as in the old days. Driving up to the trailhead and coming on Jack sitting on his dropped tailgate, crushing a cigarette he’d been smoking, looking up at Ennis with that slow smile of his, that Ennis would wait a long time to see if he had to. The way it started small and then grew. That’s what he needed, that’s what Jack gave him, and their week together wasn’t spoiled by any of the crap that Ennis had left down below where that other life was. 

His other life. True enough then, and even more so now. He didn’t go low on the plains anymore, did he? Cause now he was in the high valley reaches with Jack permanently. 

He went over to the bathroom door and banged on it, mainly cause he could and it would rile his man up. “You some old lady in there?” he hollered. He doubted what he said could be heard clearly since the shower was on, but Jack made some annoyed sound from under the splattering, and that satisfied Ennis. 

Jack cleaned up good in his navy blue suit pants and a white and blue striped shirt, put on quickly since Ennis was standing in the doorway tapping his toe. They had plenty of time but there was never any harm in making sure a person arrived when he’d said he would. He had a feeling a high-toned restaurant like he was taking Jack to might not take kindly to folks like them coming in later than their reservation time. 

“Okay if we take your truck?” he asked. There wasn’t any other way to look at it: Jack’s Ford was but a year old and looked finer than Ennis’s Dodge. Better not to drive up looking like they couldn’t afford the food.

Jack was making a knot in his tie in front of the small mirror they had hung over the dresser when the phone jangled. “Do I have time to answer this?” he asked, looking down at it on the nightstand. 

“You better,” Ennis said. “It’s probably Bobby, calling you like he should today.” 

It wasn’t Ennis’s imagination, Jack’s face really did light up when he said that, and he picked up the receiver eagerly. “Hello?”

Even Ennis feet away could hear singing coming across the wires. It wasn’t a boy’s voice, but a man’s.

“ ... Happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear John ....” 

Fucking coach. Heat prickled across his shoulders. He thought of that mark on Jack’s face, and the time he’d spent in San Antonio that Ennis hadn’t heard much about. 

The maybe-a-donkey-dong Shelborne had called once in the weeks since they’d come back from the funeral, at least once that Ennis knew of, cause it could be that the coach called every night that he was out with the horses. That one time, Jack had looked at him steadily, as if to say he didn’t want to start anything, but he was gonna keep talking, and Ennis needed to be okay with that. 

Ennis had turned away, giving the space and the privacy the way he’d been asked for with that look. He didn’t ... he really didn’t understand it, but he had to put up with it, cause this was something Jack had come down strong on. 

Things were different with him and Jack since Childress, like some log-jammed river dammed up by beavers had suddenly been blown clear, and him and Jack were like water running free. Didn’t Jack feel that? How stuff wasn’t being held back? Ennis had thought that the time they’d first lived in the same house back in Amarillo had been real good, he’d thought the early months in New Mexico had been even better, but the time now was proving that back then he hadn’t known much. How Jack could still want to talk with that Shelborne fucker considering how him and Ennis had this new understanding, Ennis didn’t know. It pained him. He tried not to think on it much, and he sure didn’t appreciate it now, this phone call, the coach getting right up in his face with his singing. Trust him to remember Jack’s birthday and then do something sissy.

While Ennis stood there fixed like a rock -- he wasn’t going away this time, as in his mind there was no need for Jack to have any privacy tonight to listen to the coach’s bullshit -- Jack’s look changed. It went from the bright hope that he could talk as father-to-Bobby to knowing he had to listen as friend-of-the-dumbass. At least, that’s how Ennis looked at it. But then Jack threw his disappointment off. He rolled his eyes and sent a sort of comical glance across the room, raising his shoulders as if to say that he didn’t have any control over this clown at all. Ennis felt better some. 

“Thanks, Gary,” Jack said into the phone. “Drunk again, I hear.”

There was some protesting coming from the other end, if Ennis was any judge. 

“No, no, it’s fine, real nice of you to call, but I can’t talk.” 

Some more nonsense from the coach, no doubt.

“No, we’re about ready to walk out the door. Ennis is taking me out to dinner.” Blab, blab, blab. “Shut up, Gary, not the local Dairy Queen. It’s this real nice place farther down the valley. It opened a couple weeks ago, south of us down in Angel Fire.”

“Hey, now,” Ennis protested, taking a step closer. 

“It’s got the best view of the mountains, I hear. We get the fancy ski crowd up here in the winter, you know.” 

Ennis looked pointedly at his watch.

“Uh-huh. Right. Yeah, Ennis is taking me out there right now, so,” Jack gave a grin no angel would ever think was right, as it was evil straight through, “think of me eating prime rib and lobster while you’re feeding your face peanuts from the bar.” 

More blab, blab, ending with “Happy birthday, you fuckhead,” that Ennis could hear fine, as Jack was holding the receiver away from his ear deliberately and turning it Ennis’s way. He was chuckling as he said, “You watch who you’re calling fuckhead. Good night, Gary.” 

Ennis waited for him to put down the phone before he said, “He’s got a mouth on him, that one,” and then wished he hadn’t. Real fast, he asked, “How’d you know where we’re going?” 

“I couldn’t think of any other restaurant nearby where we’d need to put on suits. I suppose you saw the article on it in the paper last week?”

“Yeah. You think you want to go there?”

There was that slow smile. “It’s a real nice idea. Sure. But I know how you feel about money, and this won’t be cheap. We don’t have to go there.” Jack went back to the mirror and tugged at his tie. 

“You let me decide what I want to spend my money on.”

Jack looked at him through the mirror. “But I only made you dinner on your birthday.”

“That’s cause you know I like that best. I liked that fine. But I know you like eating out best, don’t you?”

“Not every day, but ... sure.”

“I figure you must miss some of the good places you used to eat at on those sales trips, right? How you told me things were in Dallas and Houston and Denver, those places.” 

“Yeah, but -- ”

“This restaurant in Angel Fire, the paper said it was as good as any in a city. And I’ve got that coupon that came in the mail too.” 

“Okay, sounds good. Let’s get going.” Jack picked up his suit jacket from the bed and headed out to the kitchen. “But I’m driving.”

Ennis followed him. “No way. Who’s paying the check?” 

“Whose truck is it? Whose birthday is it?” 

Ennis lost that one, but it wasn’t that bad, though he always felt funny, at least some, sitting next to Jack in the truck instead of being the one behind the wheel. He guessed that was one of those things him and Jack had to tussle about that wouldn’t have been an issue if he’d been with some woman. Everybody knew that a man drove and a woman sat next to him. 

He shifted in the seat and propped his elbow up on the open window ledge, and then he took it down, fearing he’d put some mark on his suit. The truck was winging along the big loop around Eagle Nest Lake, swooping down from up high in the Carson Forest and then around to the south, aiming for Angel Fire, the airstrip there, and the ski resort. 

Ennis said, “See, told you there wasn’t any rain.”

Jack flipped up the visor and peered at the sky. The sun was low, due to set in less than half an hour, and the east side of the valley was shining in that soft, early evening glow that made the landscape look like a picture postcard. “I guess not.” 

“You know how to get there?”

“It’s on the east side of town up a ways, up by the ski lifts, right?” 

Ennis nodded. “You’ve got O’Hara to thank for this dinner.” 

Jack frowned and flipped the visor back down. He’d once told Ennis that blue-eyed men were more sensitive to the light, and he showed that now and then. Ennis had always thought he was just more sensitive all the way around. 

“I don’t want to thank that shithead for anything. What do you mean?”

“You know how I took Fancy over to him on Sunday? While you were up at the fairgrounds with Bobby?”

“Yeah?”

The sign saying one mile to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial flashed by. “He gave me a check for what he owed me, and I didn’t look at it until yesterday when I put it in the bank. He paid me twice what he should have.”

Jack shot him a look. “You’re kidding. Guilt money for him.” 

“I thought of taking it back, but -- ”

“Don’t do that.”

“I won’t. Figured we might as well have a good dinner, let him pay for it.” 

Not long after that they passed the entrance to the Memorial. Ennis could barely see the highest point of that chapel where he hadn’t stayed, but not much else. It was like the top of some sailing ship on an ocean, with him and Jack being taken away by moving water to where he wasn’t sure he should be going, but he couldn’t row against the tide. Him in a fancy restaurant .... He didn’t think he belonged in a place like that, but Jack did. He figured he’d let Jack go in first, follow him, do what he did, and he’d get by, right? 

At first he’d kicked against this idea for Jack’s birthday, eating out at all, two men together, but he knew Jack’s answers to that. He’d known all the answers years before but hadn’t been able to feel the truth of them, had pushed that truth away. Now, it seemed to him, he was in the middle of it, like it or not, cause this eating out business was getting to be a regular thing with them. He was sort of used to that now, but _The Spreading Oak_ was something separate. As they drove up a steep hill to the parking lot, he wiped his hands on his pants. Right now he could be in their own kitchen, cooking a fine meal for Jack, just the two of them. Then he looked at Jack’s face as they parked, the way his eyes were happy. Wasn’t that the point? This was how Jack wanted them to be, what Jack was used to from his old days. Ennis needed to give this a try. He could do it.

There weren’t many other cars or trucks in the lot that was a good ways up the mountain. If it’d been winter, there’d be skiers flying right next to them down the slope. “Today’s Tuesday,” Jack said as they got out and walked up the incline to the entrance. “A slow day for them, I bet.” Ennis stayed a step behind. Already there was an almost-nighttime nip in the air. Seemed since the rodeo, the weather had turned. 

Inside they had to go up a flight of wooden stairs to get to the eating area, and once there a woman with real white teeth, who could’ve stepped from an ad in a magazine, said hello, and asked if she could help them. This was where Jack couldn’t lead. Ennis told that they had reservations, name of Del Mar, though he felt foolish saying so since it was clear near three-quarters of the space was empty. Guess he hadn’t needed to call in after all, but what did he know, huh? The man who’d taken his reservation had asked if their visit was any special occasion, and Ennis hadn’t even been tempted to let him know. 

But Jack didn’t favor keeping his mouth closed, and when the gal led them toward the eating space, she asked the same question. Jack, real cheerfully, said, “It’s my birthday,” right out loud. Ennis wanted to disappear through the deep red carpet they were walking on or maybe jump out one of the big windows that ringed half the room. 

She said, “Well, then, happy birthday,” chirpy as a spring robin in the morning, and then she took them past all sorts of dark wood tables set in good-looking shadows and quiet spots, all the way to the far end of the room and up to one of those windows that looked out on the valley. “Would this be acceptable?” she asked, extending a hand toward the booth. The sun was shining in a big yellow ribbon across the table, white and cream stone it looked to be, and it would shine on them too, once they sat down. But night would be on them soon enough, Ennis figured. 

He looked over at Jack, who was nodding, so Ennis said, “Sure,” and he slid into the seat, feeling better once he was down. The gal told them their server was named Michael and would be with them shortly. Ennis thought it was strange that she didn’t hand them any menus before she left. 

“Would you look at that,” Jack said quietly. Fortunately he wasn’t checking out the hostess walking away from them with a sway of her hips, but the view out the window. 

The way the place was built up on stilts, into a knob halfway up the mountain, the north and west sides of the valley swept around the dining room. Where they were sitting, they were looking out mainly to the west, across the valley to the Sangre de Cristo range that they lived with every day and saw every morning and night. 

But Jack had invited him to look. 

He saw the beauty of the peaks picked out by the setting sun, the pitch and roll of them against the sky, the long shadows of the pine trees, and twenty different shades of green washing across the land, dimmed now as the valley eased toward winter. It was quiet in the restaurant, and they were surrounded by the high walls of the booth. The feeling was like being closed in and yet opened up, with the wall of glass showing how maybe it was to be flying, looking down at the world spread out from on high. 

Ennis was caught by the sight, and let himself be, letting some part of him come forward to cushion his surprise at appreciating what he saw. He watched long enough to note how the sun dropped, a sliver of it disappearing, and to see a solitary cloud sweep across the valley, how its shadow rolled down the western slopes, over the trucks and cars on the road, and then up the eastern hills north of where they sat. 

He turned away, conscious of maybe looking too long and feeling too much on the seeing, to find Jack’s eyes on him. He thought maybe they’d been there for a while, from the way he was being looked at, so fond. 

Ennis cleared his throat and checked around, but Jack didn’t budge or change expression; if anything, when Ennis sent his gaze back his way, there was more of a smile there, a deeper light in his eyes than before. 

“Thanks for thinking of this,” Jack said quietly. 

Ennis rubbed his forefinger along the edge of the fine table. “You never know, they might have real bad food.” 

“I don’t think so. Besides ....” Jack stopped for a breath. “It’s a far cry from Denny’s, isn’t it?”

Slowly, Ennis nodded. It sure was, in all ways, and he was too, a long way from the scared man who’d about killed any chance he’d had with Jack by the way he’d acted that night in Amarillo.

A waiter came up to their table then, a sandy-haired fellow with a barrel chest, introducing himself as Michael and asking if he could get them water -- sure, Jack said for both of them -- and if they would like to order drinks.

Jack took in breath as if to answer, but then he looked across the table at Ennis, catching his eye with a question. It took a couple seconds for Ennis to figure what he meant, and when he did both Jack and the waiter were expecting him to say something. 

He ignored Michael and asked, “You want a drink? We can have drinks, sure.” He’d already told himself he wasn’t gonna think dollars once they were past the front door, even if they charged two bucks for a slice of bread here, which they probably did. 

“I’ll have Johnnie Walker on the rocks,” Jack told Michael, who didn’t have a pad he was writing anything down on. He just stood there in his long white apron tied at the waist, which to Ennis’s eyes was a mite peculiar, with his hands behind his back and a small, polite smile pasted on his face that wasn’t changing a bit. 

Ennis ordered Jack Daniels, and then Michael asked if they wanted to look at the menu now or maybe take their time and enjoy the view. 

“We’re not in any hurry,” Jack told him, and then he checked with Ennis. “That okay with you?” 

He felt like squirming, cause he hadn’t invited the waiter to this dinner, had he? Though Jack didn’t seem to mind letting him in on things, what with this “we” business. Ennis figured he’d better set himself to be okay with that, and he said, sure, they had plenty of time, and there wasn’t any sense rushing. Michael told them their drinks would arrive shortly, and he took himself off. 

Jack was looking around, maybe checking out who else was there. Seemed the hostess seated people a distance from each other. There were some old folks at two tables twenty feet away, and then four other booths by the windows filled, but they each had one or two empty booths between them. He guessed that on most other nights there were plenty more people there. 

“This reminds me a lot of a ... a restaurant I went to in San Antonio,” Jack said. 

Ennis brought his gaze back to the man he’d come with. “Oh, yeah?” Why was Jack bringing that up now? 

Jack looked like a man determined to make way against a hurricane. “Yeah. It’s along the Riverwalk. Gershwin’s. It’s got a modern look, all glass and silver, not like this one here, but it’s got this same sort of quiet to it. And the food was great.” 

Ennis asked what he wasn’t interested in instead of what he was. “What’d you have?”

“T-bone steak. And red wine. Cabernet.”

Wine. He hadn’t thought of that. But that was the sort of thing a person did at a place like this. Besides, if Jack’d had it back in Texas, Ennis was gonna match that. “Let’s have wine tonight. Like we did at that steak house in Taos, remember?” 

“Sure.” Jack sat back against the seat, looking comfortable. Ennis checked how he felt. Still on edge, but not that bad. So far so good. 

“How were things at the ranch today?” Jack wanted to know.

Ennis told him about Tag being taken away, and BJ being underfoot, and that got them into how grateful they were that none of their kids were drug users, at least as far as they knew, and at least as far as the hard stuff went. 

“I think Bobby’s done pot a time or two,” Jack confessed, looking worried, probably thinking on a lot more about Bobby than just that. “Maybe more often.” 

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Ennis said. “You can’t expect him not to. It stands to reason he’d be curious. Hell, you were.” 

They got interrupted then by a middle-aged waiter with surprising white-blond hair bringing them their drinks, walking carefully, Ennis noticed, so as not to spill them. As he took the glasses off the tray, he said, “Hi, I’m Simon. I’ll be your waiter for the rest of the evening. You had the Johnnie Walker, right?” 

Ennis noted how Jack looked up at the guy as if he was trying to figure something out, and then his lips thinned like he didn’t much favor the thought he’d just had. “Michael discover he had pressing business somewhere else?” Jack asked. 

Simon stepped back and slipped the tray under his arm. “Something like that. But I’m not going anywhere, and I’m pleased to serve you two gentlemen this evening. I’ll be back shortly with your menus.” 

Ennis didn’t care one way or the other about the way fancy-pants restaurants like this one did their business, one waiter being as good as another to him. He waited until Simon left, still walking like he was balancing fine liquor, and then he lifted his glass and held it over the table toward Jack. “Happy birthday,” he said.

The gloom on Jack’s face lifted, and Jack held up his drink too, matching him. “First birthdays together.” 

“Yep. Not the last ones,” he said, trying to keep it casual, though he knew there wasn’t much casual about this whole set-up. But he had to say something of what he meant. 

“That’s ... that’s a real fine toast,” Jack said, his voice sort of low and throaty. 

“Good thing you think so, or we’d be in trouble.” 

They clicked their glasses together and drank down some of the warmth that good whiskey gave. 

By the time they finished reading through the menu and figuring out what they wanted, the first stars were out, and the sight of the valley slipping into darkness was something to behold. Ennis didn’t take his eyes off the outside for a while, but through a trick of reflecting, maybe cause of the candle that was lit on their table, he could see Jack in the glass at the same time as he saw the big outdoors, one laid over the other until he wasn’t sure which was the true sight and which was the mirror one. Jack pulled off a hunk of sourdough bread and put butter on it, and Ennis’s gaze was fixed on his hands even though to anybody looking at them, he was turned away. He always had liked Jack’s hands, those strong fingers touching him in all ways, touching the whole wide world without the same fear that made Ennis keep his hands to himself. 

Already this night was like a dream, or some stupid story that couldn’t be true. But here he was, able to afford this fancy meal even though the prices next to each dish had made him blink, and able to give this to Jack when for years he’d given him nothing. 

Guess maybe that explained why he was going overboard, some. All this fuss.

After the bottle of red wine they’d ordered was unstoppered, poured out for them, and Ennis had declared he didn’t much like drinking vinegar -- but only once the wine guy had taken himself off -- the twinkly lights around the ski resort at the base of the mountain had come on. That made it look like Christmas instead of September, with stars on the ground below them to match the ones coming out in the sky above them. As Simon brought them appetizers -- iceberg lettuce wedge for Ennis, lobster bisque for Jack -- a wind came up, whipping a froth of white across the dark, covering the stars and then showing their brilliant points of light, reminding Ennis of ....

“Remember that trip we took -- ”

“To the Wind River range.” 

Yeah. They’d sat out in those little chairs that Jack always brought and tipped their heads back to see the blaze of glory overhead. When they couldn’t get enough of it, they’d dragged out the air mattresses and the blankets from the tent and laid them in the open, where they could watch the sky flat on their backs all night long. There’d been a high, thin cloud cover, like the gauzy layer of a woman’s dress laid over the stars. It sure made the view special. Ennis remembered they hadn’t even had sex, only laid there next to each other, Jack all bundled up cause of how he took the cold, exchanging a word here and there, exclaiming together once when they’d spotted a shooting star. 

“That was a fine night,” Ennis said. Thinking back on it, as if he was right there still, he had a strong wish to touch Jack somehow, be connected through all that they’d seen. But he hadn’t done that back then, like he hadn’t done a bunch of things that maybe would have made a difference between them. 

“Fine night tonight too,” Jack said, and for a span of seconds Ennis couldn’t take his eyes off his man’s face. He had some feeling Jack was thinking the same thoughts as he was, that Jack understood how he looked at things plenty different now. 

Before their main order showed up, Simon brought them little cups of stuff like ice cream, only icier, and they tried to guess what it was made of. Some sort of fruit. Ennis thought maybe watermelon, Jack thought cantaloupe, but neither one of them was right on the money, they knew. Jack stopped the waiter as he was going past after tending to another table and asked him. 

“It’s a tropical mix,” he said, real friendly for all that he was dressed up for this fancy eatery, including the white apron that Ennis saw now that all the waiters wore. It wasn’t just that Michael guy, who was taking care of tables across the room. 

“It’s papaya and guava, and I think there’s some kiwi in it,” Simon went on. “The chef makes it up differently every night.”

“Never would have guessed that,” Jack told him. 

“Did you like it?” 

“Sure. Ennis, you liked it too, didn’t you?”

Ennis didn’t know that he’d go so far as to say that, but it hadn’t been bad, and he allowed as that was so. 

“I’m told one of you is having a birthday today,” Simon said. 

Jack smiled up at him, and of a sudden Ennis lifted his head and gave the waiter another look. “I am. Forty years old today,” Jack said. 

“Really? I’m forty too.”

“That makes three of us, then.” Jack swept his hand to show Ennis sitting across from him, when any idiot would know who he was talking about. 

“That’s right,” Simon nodded. “Three of us.” 

There was a pause while nobody said anything, and Ennis sure as hell wasn’t gonna fill up that silence. But after a bit Simon said, “I’ll go check on your entrees, then,” and he left. 

Jack caught his eye and chuckled. Ennis wanted to say he didn’t see anything to chuckle about, queers following them around, first the coach and now this friendly guy, maybe too friendly for his own comfort, but he wasn’t gonna spoil Jack’s good mood. He took up the wine bottle and topped off both their glasses instead. “How was work today?”

“Good,” Jack said. “I had lunch with Andy over at the coffee shop.”

“He know it’s your birthday?”

“Nah. At Newsome’s, L.D.’s secretary made sure every birthday got celebrated, and it got to be funny how L.D. would make himself scarce every time September 25 came around.” Ennis didn’t think that was funny at all, everybody at the dealership seeing how the boss treated his son-in-law, but he let Jack go on making light of it. “But it got to be ridiculous, celebrating every time you turned around. It’s easier if nobody knows and nobody pays any attention.” 

“That’s the way I see it too. That Andy fella. Is he still counting on you to do his work like you thought might happen that time in Kansas City, not pulling his load?”

Jack picked the napkin up from his lap, shook it out, and put it back down again. “Nah. Andy’s a good guy.”

“I remember when we ran into him with Lureen. Seemed like a pipsqueak to me.”

“No, he’s not like that,” Jack said real earnestly. “There’s more to him than I thought. Don’t you be bad-mouthing him.” 

“I’m not bad-mouthing him, I’m just saying what I think. But you know better than me, you work with the guy. Hey, you better tell me, I don’t have no cause, I mean, any cause to ... ” Ennis looked around, but nobody was seated any closer to them than had been there twenty minutes before. He shrugged. “You know.” 

That got Jack back to being light-hearted, what is what he’d aimed for. “Nope, you don’t have any cause. Andy’s happy being married, I think, and he’s a God-fearing man if there ever was one. Besides, only one man’s got my attention, the one who’s treating me so good today.” He reached between them and tapped the table with his finger. 

“Yeah, well, once I get a look at the bill I won’t be so happy, so you appreciate this smiling face while you can.”

“Smiling face?” Jack made a point of lifting up some and checking behind him, and then doing the same over Ennis’s shoulder. “Where?” 

When careful-footed Simon brought them their food, he didn’t have a sign on him announcing that he was one of three, but he did have pecan-crusted trout for Jack and for New York strip steak for Ennis. Ennis had to admit, the food wasn’t bad, even that lettuce he’d had tasting real fresh, and the beef so tender he hardly needed a knife. A side dish of mushrooms in wine sauce came with what he’d ordered, and he was doubtful trying it, but it seemed that cooking made the wine taste different. He’d never tasted mushrooms like that and had no complaints. He talked with Jack about how living in the tourist area might not be such a bad thing, having this kind of food on their back doorstep. Ennis was sure nothing like _The Spreading Oak_ was within two hundred miles of Riverton. Someday, Jack said, maybe Junior would be cooking in a restaurant like this. Ennis was struck by the idea, hoping that his daughter would rise that high, and that she’d be happy. 

Jack pushed his plate away at last, not one bite of trout or the corn and rice mix it’d come with left on it. It was a surprise when Ennis moved his suit jacket sleeve aside to look at his Timex and found it was nearly eight already. It didn’t seem like the time had passed that fast, but it had. 

“You ready to head out?” Ennis asked as when Simon came back, his hand cupped over what he was carrying. He set it in front of Jack, a slice of chocolate cake with a lit candle on it, drizzled over with some sort of red fruit sauce. On the rim of the plate the sauce spelled out _Happy Birthday._

“Compliments of the house,” the waiter said. If he’d started to sing, Ennis would have busted his chops, as maybe he would have been expected to join in, but that didn’t happen. Bad enough that they’d been put in the spotlight, everybody else looking at what was going on. Instead, Jack blew out the candle and they were asked if they wanted coffee. 

Once Simon had been sent off to get the check instead, taking with him the coupon Ennis had brought, Jack said, “Here, you help me eat this.” He offered the extra fork that Simon had left, but if Jack thought Ennis would do something like that, he was crazy straight through. He sat there watching Jack eat until the final total arrived, and then he put money on the table without one word of complaining, leaving fifteen percent for the tip, less a couple pennies, cause he knew that’s what restaurants like this one expected. 

Walking out a couple minutes later was a good feeling, not only for leaving, but cause he hadn’t made a fool of himself. And Jack had liked it, he didn’t need to ask to know that. So far, the day had worked out.

*****

_Sunday, September 25, 1983  
He fell asleep in his one armchair past midnight. When he woke up hours later to take a piss, Ennis found his way to the bed, collapsing on top of it without having the will or a reason to pull down his old blanket. _

_The sunlight splashing across the sheet and finally coming up like a wave over the mound of his body to hit his face: that’s what woke him up. But he didn’t drag his sorry self to his feet, not on Sunday, not with his head pounding, not when he didn’t have anywhere to go or anything much to do. He rolled over to face the wall and forced himself back to sleep._

_He didn’t eat until past noon, when the beef stew that Junior had made for him the day before served for breakfast and lunch together. He sopped up the juices with one of the leftover biscuits. The other two he’d take for lunch on Monday. The stew was good; it covered over the sour liquor gunk in his mouth that tasted worse than earwax._

_Fall came early to Wyoming, making the day gray and even more windy than usual. For a while he stood in the open doorway of his shack and watched the long yellow grass bend in the breeze, not caring how the dust was getting inside. South of here, where Jack lived on the plains of Texas, he knew it was still warm, but he’d never seen it. He’d never felt the sun that Jack said sucked all the water out of a man, making him sweat so much on a summer’s day that Lureen would make him shower the minute he stepped foot in the house. And Ennis never would see it. Guess he’d made that clear over the years._

_Ennis blinked as something or other got blown in his eye, and it took a minute of him fishing around with his finger to get the thing out. Then he went inside cause football was on TV the whole afternoon long, and more beer was calling._

_For dinner he took two hot dogs out of the refrigerator and wrapped them in pieces of bread, without bothering to warm them on the stove the way Alma had done during the time when he’d had a wife. Cold was okay, as he didn’t care one way or the other. He ate them standing up over the counter, and when he was finished chewing he turned around and saw the calendar tacked to the closet door. He went over and picked up the pencil hanging from a string. There were twenty-four X marks on the month so far. Carefully, squinting a little, he marked off the twenty-fifth of September._

_He started his second six pack of the day while _Sixty Minutes_ was on, though he didn’t pay much attention to Dan Rather, and finished it not all that much later, even knowing his head would hurt something fierce the next day. He didn’t give a damn. Any man who couldn’t work his job with a hangover wasn’t much of a man to his mind. He could do it, no problem. What he couldn’t do was believe that Jack wouldn’t show. No way he wouldn’t show at Pine Creek. He’d be there. Ennis would send his postcard in a week or two, and Jack would answer, and they’d go on like they always did._

_The bed was for sleeping in, but there was something in Ennis that lately had made him want to stay put, as if laying down on the mattress was giving up. Or admitting to something he didn’t want to admit to. Or inviting his bad dreams and bad thoughts and fears to come right in. Tonight he did what he’d done most nights lately, put his head back and closed his eyes sitting in the chair, working hard to push aside the bad and concentrate on the good: the first kiss each time, not the last, the first fuck, not the one before they had to part, the first feeling he got on touching Jack, not the loneliness or the ache that rose up in him bigger than any mountain after he was gone. Not that._

_He drifted to sleep. One more day gone._

*****

Ennis opened the back room door, stepped in, turned around and said, “Okay.” 

More curious than a cat, that’s what Jack had been all the way home from the restaurant. He’d finally teased Ennis for being gone the night before. He looked like a curious cat right now, coming forward like he had no idea what the big mystery could be and why Ennis wanted to give him his gift back here. Good, that’s what Ennis had been hoping, that this would be a surprise. He watched Jack as he turned and saw the brand new chair set up next to Ennis’s old one. 

“What?” Jack said. He got closer in a hurry, with his eyes wide. “What’s this?” 

“Real leather,” Ennis said from where he stationed himself by the TV. 

“Holy shit.” Jack reached out, running his fingers across the cowhide at the top, where Ennis already knew it was soft to the touch. The chair rocked back and then forward. “It’s a rocker?”

“Nope. Recliner. A rocking one.” 

Jack lifted his face. “You got me a recliner for my birthday?” 

Ennis found he was gnawing on his thumb, and he brought his hand abruptly back to his side. “Yeah. Is it ... is it okay?”

He’d gone back to the J.C. Penney store in Taos, not Goodwill, not a secondhand shop, though he’d been tempted. They’d had a whole long row of these big chairs, and the lady selling them had wanted him to sit in each one to try them out. Some had been vinyl, some had been part leather, and some all leather, with a big difference in price and, it turned out, in how heavy they were too. He’d narrowed it down to three of them, but he’d bought the one that put the biggest dent in his wallet. He wasn’t buying what he needed from Jack through this giving -- that had to be given freely -- but no way was he getting anything less than what Jack might’ve had if he’d stayed in Amarillo with that dickhead. 

“Is it okay? Jesus!” 

He was pretty sure that meant Jack liked it, especially from the way Jack dropped himself in the seat. He pulled the lever on the side and back he went, up went his feet, and Jack was sitting just right for TV watching. 

Ennis came up close and looked down at him. “Here, see this? It goes back more if you want.” 

He bent over and did the lever moving himself, to show, and Jack could only be flatter in their own bed. 

“I could have got it in green or blue, but I thought this brown looked okay. What do you think?”

“I think brown’s fine,” Jack said, looking up at him with his eyes like those stars they’d seen at the restaurant. “Ennis -- ” 

“There’s this polish stuff we can put on it, to keep it looking good. I put that on the shelf over the dryer.” 

“It looks great now. Ennis -- ”

“I remembered that recliner you had in your old house. It was a shame we had to leave that behind with the stuff the landlord owned, so I thought maybe you’d want this. You’re always putting your feet up, so I -- ”

“Ennis, would you shut up and come down here and kiss me?” 

He didn’t take issue with that but bent down and did what he was asked, putting their lips together and feeling from that touch how surprised Jack was to be getting this, and how he appreciated it too. But then Jack made a wicked sound, chuckling, and the next thing Ennis knew he was being yanked down into the chair. 

“Hey!” He scrambled, trying to get away, but Jack was grabbing to keep Ennis on top of him, running his fingers along Ennis’s sides and up to his armpits, tickling too. “Jack!” he hollered. 

That stopped the tickling at least, but Jack had hold of him good with both arms and legs wrapped around him, and to get away he would have had to work at it. He relaxed right where he was, mostly on top of Jack, his nose pushed into the side of his neck, though partly wedged next to him. 

There was some length of seconds where they stayed that way. Finally Jack asked, his breath brushing into Ennis’s hair, “You think we’re too heavy, together like this? I don’t want to break it.” 

“Nah. It’s a good chair,” he mumbled. “It’ll hold us.”

“You bet it’s a good chair. I can’t believe ....” Jack squeezed him. “How did you know I missed that recliner at the townhouse?” 

“You kept taking mine and putting your feet up.” 

“Oh, so this is so you get to sit again in your own chair.”

“Ah, come on, you know it ain’t. I didn’t mind. I just thought -- ”

“Ennis.” 

That stopped him. “Yeah?”

Jack squirmed until he was turned on his side, sliding Ennis off onto his side too, until they were shoved up against each other like slices of bread in a loaf. There wasn’t space to pull back and see all of Jack, but Ennis knew what he looked like -- the man who he’d had waking dreams about for his whole life, it seemed -- and it was good to look close up. He saw the strands of gray in Jack’s moustache, and the glint of gold and blonde there, and the pores on his nose, and the long length of his eyelashes. Everything good, everything that he wanted. 

Jack pushed his fingers through Ennis’s hair. “This chair is the best gift. Thank you.” 

Jack kissed him, and the fuss Ennis had gone to in order to get to Taos, worrying about what was right or wrong to buy, and pulling out his checkbook, that was sure worth it. 

For sure Jack wanted to take this further, his tongue sneaking out between his lips -- what that tongue in his mouth did for Ennis, that thrill going through him never enough, always needing more of it, more of Jack .... 

But .... He hadn’t had this in mind when he’d thought through how the evening should go. He meant to do it differently. 

“Hold on, bud,” he managed to get out.

“I want you for my birthday,” Jack whispered on his skin, moving against him, a push coming from down below that Ennis had no defense for except to get away completely. 

It took effort to get himself out of there -- it seemed they were trapped together in a well in that chair, the angle of it not letting him loose easily, and Jack gripping him sure didn’t help any -- but he managed, finally standing on his own two feet. Ennis wiped his mouth against the back of his hand, grateful that at least he’d changed out of the suit when they’d got home before he went to check on the horses. Jack, in good shirt and pants still, all wrinkled now, was gonna need dry cleaning for sure. 

“You stay right there,” Ennis told him when he saw him reaching for the lever. Of course Jack didn’t pay him any mind at all. Ennis heard the chair coming down as he went over to where he’d stashed the other gift under the cushion of the wide, built-in sofa that spanned the width of the room. He fished it out, worried that this last thing was dumb, worse than the card. 

He kept the gift between the palms of his hands as he turned around and brought it over to where Jack was sitting in the recliner like a normal person in a normal chair, his feet on the floor and hunched forward some, his elbows on his knees. 

“What do you have there?” he wanted to know, proving how with this birthday and every other birthday they’d share how different they were, cause in his shoes Ennis never would have asked. 

Ennis sat down in his own chair the same way Jack was, with the little table that held the telephone and the lamp between them. “This ain’t much,” he said. “But I wanted you to have it. For your hat, I guess.” 

He handed it over, wondering if he should have wrapped it, cause neither one of these things from him had wrapping paper or ribbons on them, and Jack had done good that way with his boots. But Jack didn’t seem to mind, cause he took the feather from Ennis with care, and maybe there was some wonder there too.

“First you take me to the best restaurant in the valley, then you give me a recliner even better than the one I had, and now you give me a feather. You’re killing me.”

“Come on now, don’t make fun.”

“I’m not. It’s just ....”

“That’s your hawk’s feather,” Ennis pointed out. “Floyd brought it to the ranch last week. He thought maybe I’d want it when he found it on the ground by the cage he has the bird in.”

Jack’s eyes darted from the feather up to Ennis’s face and then back again. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” 

“My hawk? Christ.” Jack held it between his knees, twirling it some, his head sort of down, without saying anything more for a while. 

“I know it’s not -- ”

Jack interrupted him. “I thought you didn’t think much of trying to get that bird to fly.” 

Ennis shrugged. “I guess it’s your business, and Floyd’s too. Give him time, and maybe it’ll happen.” 

“Maybe it will.” 

Jack ran his fingers along the feather, and Ennis remembered how soft it was, and how light, weighing so little it was hardly there at all. Even so, feathers were important, lifting the bird up into the air. This one was white down at the base but got red in a hurry, with a couple thin bands of black running across, and then at the tip a strong band, with fluffy feathering of mixed red and white and black coming from that. 

“It’s a tail feather,” Jack said, playing with the end part. 

“I know that. See how good shape it’s in? If a bird’s sick or something, it shows in his feathers, but there’s nothing wrong here, no splits or anything. I’d say he’s doing all right.” 

“Yeah, so far so good. You ever seen a young hawk’s feathers? A red-tail, I mean. They’re different from this. This one here’s from a fellow who’s been around a while.” 

“What you gonna do with it?” 

Jack looked over at him with how happy he was showing on his face. “You want me to put it in my hat?”

“If you want. It doesn’t matter.” 

“In my hat then.” Jack laid it down on the table between them, and then he relaxed with a sigh against the chair. “Damn, Ennis. You put me to shame. What a birthday.” 

Ennis stood up. “It ain’t done yet.” 

Jack knew what he was talking about, cause that was a hungry man who glanced up at him. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Only we ain’t doing nothing in that chair, it ain’t cut out for it, and I don’t want it getting stained or anything the first day you’ve got it.” 

“Okay, you’re the boss. Where do you want to do it? We don’t have any chandeliers.” 

“You asshole,” Ennis growled. “Come on up here.” 

What he meant was to stand up, which Jack did, joking about the man with the flying trapeze. Ennis never had understood those tales of folks having sex in weird places, like in swings and stuff. 

“You’ve got to get naked,” Ennis said. He put fingers to the task, starting with Jack’s tie, silky feeling and coming loose easily. He pulled it out of the collar and dropped it down on the chair. Jack had gone real still with the first touch.

He wished he had a camera -- maybe that was something they needed to get -- but then again even if he had one he wouldn’t take a picture of Jack’s face right now, showing everything. Nobody at the camera store needed to get an eyeful of the way Jack was looking at him; nobody in the whole world needed to see that look but him. His fingers against the top button slipped some, and already he was getting hard, knowing what they were gonna do, what he had set in his mind for this night.

“Are you undressing me?” Jack asked real quietly. 

“Looks like it.” 

“Do I get to take your clothes off?”

“Nope. That ain’t important.”

“It’s important to me,” Jack whispered, and he moved in closer for a kiss, softer than that feather Ennis had just given. It was more of that morning birthday kiss, and Ennis touched his lips to Jack’s the same way. His hands stilled on that good shirt. 

_It was the last night. It was cold. The stars overhead gave no comfort, cause tomorrow would start the long, lonely count to the next fishing trip._

_“Sometimes ....” Jack said._

_Sometimes? All the time. I don’t say it, I don’t show it, and what we’ve got is impossible, but every fucking day, Jack._

_“Sometimes I miss you so much ....”_

_So much? This much? As much as the wind blows without hope in Wyoming?_

_“Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it.”_

_Sitting there under the peeping-Tom sky next to Jack, his man telling what they shouldn’t ever tell out loud no matter how they might think it or feel it, Ennis didn’t say anything in return. Months later, dead drunk sitting at his kitchen table after Jack had left him, that memory of him keeping his mouth shut hurt. Knowing how he’d let what Jack said stand alone, that hurt him bad._

He owed Jack.

“Let me do this for you,” Ennis whispered, remembering. He still wasn’t any good with words, but he could do this. 

Undo the buttons of the shirt, then pull the shirt out at the waist. Undo the buttons at the cuffs, Jack holding his hands out one at a time, with Ennis hardly being able to look at him, turned suddenly shy with how they were doing this slowly, without the usual rush of them going at each other, and shy with how Jack’s chest was moving with deep breathing and how his own hands were prickling with the need to touch bare skin that he wasn’t letting happen yet. Sliding the sleeves off Jack’s arms to the floor, leaving him standing there in his t-shirt. Hands at Jack’s belt, undoing the buckle and slipping the leather through, now face to face with Jack through that, their lips separate an inch or two, their eyes locked together, and it was killing Ennis not to kiss him. He didn’t know when he’d wanted it more. He was drowning in blue eyes. 

Belt gone, his fingers fumbling, and Jack was plenty hard, cause it was tough to get the zipper down over his dick. Ennis ripped his eyes away from Jack’s and stared at his mouth instead while he worked it, hardly hearing the sound of the zip going down for how his own dick lifted at the sight of Jack’s tongue coming out to the side, and he knew he was being teased and liked it. 

“Fucker,” he said, hardly more than a move of his lips, but the corners of Jack’s mouth lifted. 

Down Ennis went on his knees, to get away from what was driving him nuts as much as to pull Jack’s pants down to his ankles. He hadn’t thought this through, though, cause he’d forgotten about the shoes that had to come off first. Jack saw it too; he dropped back into the chair from where he was, almost missing the seat and catching it with the last curve of his ass. He laughed suddenly and threw the rest of himself back. Ennis stood up and pulled off Jack’s shoes and socks and his pants, tossing everything to the side, not caring where anything landed. 

If ever a man was asking to get fucked, it was Jack lounging back in his new recliner, wearing nothing but his white t-shirt and his white shorts, looking up at him with the devil doing a tap dance in his eyes. Jack lifted one leg and put his bare foot directly on Ennis’s jeans, right on his dick. 

If men were rockets, Ennis would have taken off right then, or maybe he would have exploded on the take-off pad the way sometimes happened. Ennis grabbed that foot and pressed it up against him, grinding into it and loving even the feel of the bare ankle in his hand but mainly the weight on his dick, taking his time humping that foot, grunting as he let Jack turn it all ways, letting the toes curl and inch their way up the length of his shaft. It felt fucking fantastic, all the better for Jack laid out before him, watching what they were doing.

Finally, he panted and said, “You ain’t in your birthday suit yet.” When he let go of the ankle and took Jack’s hand and pulled, Jack came to his feet with his face so alive .... Ennis felt like a million dollars even with his dick left alone. A million dollars that needed the rest of his man’s clothes off. 

Jack went to strip off his t-shirt, Ennis tugged on his shorts, down they went, Jack kicked them to the side, and the job was done. He could hardly look on what was standing there: John Henry Twist, Junior, naked here with him in the back room of their house in Eagle Nest, every part of that a surprise, every part of Jack perfect to his eyes and all of it calling to him. 

Jack tilted his head and grinned. “You like what you see?” 

Ennis didn’t let him get the words out of his mouth before he was pressed up against him, his hands going around to Jack’s ass and pulling him up close as could be, except for the clothes between them. “You goddamned motherfucking sonuvabitch,” he breathed against Jack’s face, “damn right I like what I see.” 

He swooped in to take what he needed and met Jack doing the same, and there wasn’t anything as good as when their lips ground against each other so hard that it hurt. There was need in that hurting, in the blood that exploded in Ennis’s mouth, salt taste of it, cause Jack tasted it too. It was the same for both of them and always had been. 

Jack was working his hands under Ennis’s belt. “Get these clothes off!”

Ennis attacked the point where neck met shoulder, bit down, feeling parts of himself coming loose, it felt good, teeth against skin. “Nope. We don’t need that for what I’ve got in mind.” 

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.” 

“Come on,” Jack said, frustrated, sweeping his hands up under Ennis’s shirt.

“Come on? You want me to get on with things?”

“Ennis!”

Jack didn’t fight it much when Ennis turned him around facing the sofa and shoved him face-down on the cushion. A hand on his hip sent him lengthwise, and Ennis was on him the next second, dropping his full weight flat and whispering in that man’s ear, “You be still now.”

“Still? Fuck!” came from where Jack was heaving under him. Ennis rode the waves, knowing Jack could have flipped him off, knowing he wasn’t gonna do that, and that his bare dick pushing against the brown stripes of the sofa couldn’t feel bad. 

He slithered like a snake down the length of Jack’s spine, stopping to press his lips twice to either side, but not wasting much time there, aiming instead for Jack’s ass. Jack might like getting fucked, and he might like even more doing the fucking these days, but one thing Ennis was sure of was that he really liked getting his asshole licked. 

“Oh, damn!” Jack tensed all over when Ennis parted his asscheeks, and like he couldn’t control himself his ass rose up so quick that Ennis almost got smacked in the face. Just as quickly he rolled down flat again, Ennis following him like some dog chasing after a bird. This close he couldn’t resist. That tight-clenched hole that he’d opened many times before invited him in, and he touched it with the tip of his tongue.

Past pride, past fear, the last thing Ennis wouldn’t do during their mountain-time, the first sour taste of it, some part of him standing apart and looking at himself laid out like this, a grown man with all his clothes on with his face buried in a naked man’s ass, Jack groaning like he was being tortured it was that good, and Ennis’s dick in his jeans was a monster at sea, trying to jump right through his zipper. 

He ignored the need to touch himself, just barely, wanting to haul it out and take it in hand, or even better shove it where .... Instead he wriggled and pushed against the cushion. At least it was something. He really needed wet heat around him. But he kept going at the one place, long licks of his tongue, tickling the outside, even daring to force his way inside a time or two, then over again, Jack’s cursing keeping him going -- “Hell, Ennis, crap, that feels ... yeah, right there, oh, damn, I’m gonna get you, fuck you hard, right ... yeah, there, shit!” -- until his lips were numb and he’d breathed in so much of Jack he had to come up for air, gasping. He pulled back and Jack pounded both fists on the couch, and that sent such a feeling through Ennis, no doubts, not about anything. He pressed kisses over the curve of Jack’s ass, feeling the muscles, starting with a few here and there, then more, cause this was good, he wanted to kiss Jack all over, but he wanted to drive Jack to the brink more. Back he went, tongue seeking, busy. The flat, almost metal taste was gone, pure Jack now, though, contrary, Ennis sniffed trying to capture it again. 

Jack wasn’t close to listening to what Ennis had told him, to stay still. It was hard to keep on target with all the thrusting he was doing, so on one of the moves up Ennis reached under between his legs and managed to get his fingers on the hairs of his balls. 

“Christ!” Jack turned into a statue real fast, and Ennis inched his fingers up and around, hefting this part of Jack’s package in the palm of his hand, wishing they were turned around head to toe and Jack was doing this to him too. 

“Up,” he said, his voice coming like from the bottom of a bucket, but Jack heard him, knew what he wanted, and cautiously he lifted his ass end up high. Ennis followed him, keeping his watering mouth where it was even though it was harder now cause he wasn’t pulling Jack wide with both hands anymore, but he could do it. Down below he rubbed his thumb over the softness, seeking out the two hard balls, feeling even as he did how tight everything was getting. He listened to Jack’s breathing, that hadn’t exactly been calm to begin with, rev up so there wasn’t hardly any space at all between his panting. 

“Take it!” Jack hollered, the raw need in his voice sending a chill up Ennis’s back and then over to make his dick throb. Then he was up on all fours, and Ennis pulled back from his feasting at Jack’s asshole, startled. “If you don’t touch my dick I’m gonna bust a gasket, I swear, I’m ... aaaahhhh.” 

Jack stood his stroking for all of five seconds maybe, just enough for Ennis to reach round and get in two or three jerks from dick-tip down, but that was more than Jack could take. He whipped himself around and ended on his ass, up on his elbows, and it was a good thing Ennis knew how to care for a man’s equipment or he would have got his dick torn off with a move like that. There was fire in his eyes when Jack spit out, “If you don’t get down to business, I swear I won’t be responsible for what I do.” It seemed that his dick, red and stiff, standing straight up between his legs, was saying the same thing. 

Ennis -- or maybe more it was Ennis’s dick -- didn’t need a second invitation. He jumped to his feet and set a world’s record in shucking his shoes and tearing off his clothes, wiping his mouth on his shirt, and then his right hand was on the last button while his left hand was on his dick, pulling strong. 

“Come on over here!” Jack rolled over onto his side where he was still stretched out on the couch, and two steps took Ennis to his willing mouth and the wet heat he needed. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he chanted, hardly even knowing he was saying anything as he stood there and shoved inside those red lips and cupped his own balls, hunching four or five times before he got control. Couldn’t shoot his load yet ....

Without breaking the suction Jack had on him, he reached down to under the cushion where he’d stashed the lube next to where the feather had been. Jack hummed his approving around Ennis’s shaft in his mouth, and that vibrating feeling about sent him over the edge. He managed to jerk away as the first hint of the rush started in the root of him, squeezing himself tight, sending his coming back where it’d started, and promising himself the granddaddy of all dick explosions soon. 

He squirted KY in his hand and then slathered it all over Jack’s shaft, bending down to kiss his open lips before he could come out with more orders, and then crawling over him while still sending his tongue down Jack’s throat. Hands on his hips steadied him when he came upright, straddling Jack at the waist. 

“What ... ” Jack could hardly get the words out for the way he was gulping in air. “What’re you doing?”

Ennis lifted up on his knees where he could put the lube on himself back there and didn’t even think of answering that question. Jack knew, as he proved when he swiped the tube and coated a couple fingers, then stuck one up inside Ennis, and didn’t that feel real good as he circled it around, especially since Ennis knew he was cleaned out there. Ennis squeezed the finger, Jack yelped, but then it was two fingers stretching him, and Ennis’d had enough. 

“Let’s go,” he said, cause he was opened plenty. He lifted up again, Jack steadied himself with a hand at the base of his dick, and Ennis tried to go down slow, taking Jack in gradually, but Jack had other ideas. 

He shoved into Ennis with a snap of his hips and a growl that Ennis seemed to take in like a shot of high proof whiskey, burning all his let’s-make-this-last plans out of his head. He yanked Jack’s hand from off his hip and planted it on his dick, said, “Do me!” and began to ride.

He was getting the best of this bargain, front and behind and free all ways. Jack knew where to touch him as good as Ennis touching himself, only better, better, hellfire, cause it was Jack doing the touching, there, there, and already he had Ennis back to full hardness and aching, Jack’s hand sending shocks of raw pleasing streaking through him like he was being touched by a live wire and he didn’t want it to stop, do it again, Jack, ah, yeah, again, don’t dare stop, his hand was a blur working up and down, Jack’s mouth open, and about as good was at the same time the heat up Ennis’s ass moving like a pistoning furnace in and out of him, Jack doing that, Jack, Jack’s dick up his ass, the pinching pain of that first pushing in already gone and there instead whatever the hell it was that he liked so much about this, that prostate thing or just being full or that it was Jack doing this or that he was giving this to Jack, but JesusChristAlmighty, he could spend all night getting his ass reamed like this.

His hope of drawing this out was long gone. Jack was pulling his coming out of him and there wasn’t any stopping it, nothing doing, no way, on its way, almost there, his balls were so tight and high it felt like he could swallow them, here it comes, gathering from way down deep where nobody but God and Jack had ever been or ever would be. 

With a wild howl to the ceiling Ennis gave himself up to it, the first splash of pure sex-good shooting out into Jack’s hand. There was nothing like that thrill that drove him, drove him, drove him high, highest a man could be, sitting on top of Jack Twist, being lifted up by him and his strong dick, his strong legs and hips, his strong heart, hearing him cry out yes, Ennis, go! then on to the second splash, holydamnation fucking fine, holy like that chapel top of the memorial aimed at heaven, and why did this have to stop, huh, why couldn’t it go on and on but it didn’t, down to the third splash, lower but still on the shoulders of the angels, and then it was gone. 

Ennis forced his eyes open to see his man, wild-eyed, starry-eyed, heaven-sent, just this side of where Ennis had already been, his face tense and straining, and Ennis bore down on him hard, capturing Jack’s dick in him with a squeeze that had everything he could put into it. 

The drivers down on the highway must have heard Jack’s drawn-out, wailing scream that lifted the hairs on the back of Ennis’s neck. Jack grabbed him around the waist, rose half up and forced his dick up, in, in, in, and Ennis met him every thrust. Cause it was his birthday. It was for Jack. 

*****

Somebody moving against him woke him up, and after a while Ennis found the energy to crack open an eyelid. Jack had left him and was sitting in his recliner, naked as the day he was born. He looked like that guy in the Bible, whoever he was, the real wise one or maybe the brave one with the slingshot. That’s who Ennis saw.

“Come on back,” Ennis said, drowsy, and he lifted an arm. 

Jack slipped back to him, warm against his chest as Ennis pulled him close. “Happy birthday,” he said, and he kissed Jack’s ear. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep again. 

*****

“Bobby didn’t call.” 

Ennis didn’t know what time of night it was, but him and Jack had woken up a couple minutes earlier, curled up on their sofa, glued to each other, Jack’s back to his front. Ennis had let himself drift, but now here was Jack saying this. 

“Maybe he did when we were out.” It was the best he could think of.

He wanted to get up and shut down the lights, the overhead one and the one on the table between their chairs, make it nighttime dark the same as when him and Jack talked to each other sometimes. But he didn’t. 

Jack’s chest under his palm rose and fell, and Ennis let his fingertips scratch against chest hair a bit. 

After a minute, Jack said, “I guess maybe.” 

“We don’t have an answering machine like I do on the business line. If we did, maybe you’d be listening to his voice right now.” 

The house was quiet, and outside it was quiet too, no traffic sounds, though Ennis knew the animal world came alive when the sun went down. In their forest there were mice scurrying around, and possums, a skunk or two, there’d be owls flitting soundlessly on huge wings from branch to branch, and a squeak as one of those mice got caught. The vultures’ wings were tucked in tight as they roosted on their dead wood, keeping watch over the horses in the pasture: Jigger and Dawn, Trouble-without-a-new-name-yet, and the horse from Floyd, doing okay. In the stable the pinto was standing in a bed of new straw, high piled cause Ennis was doing his best by that horse. Barely seen under the stars there was a flash of white, the thud of feet against dirt, and maybe the outline of a fine-antlered stag running for cover into the trees. 

Jack put his hand over Ennis’s that was around him. “He wouldn’t hug me good-bye yesterday.” 

Ennis frowned. 

“I know he’s almost eighteen, but we always .... Even after the divorce. Shit.” 

If there was something right to say then, Ennis didn’t know what it was. 

“I went to hug him before he got in that fancy Camaro of his, and he didn’t want any part of his homosexual dad. I guess I’m lucky he shook my hand.” 

Jack? Standing in the morning sunshine with his hopes laid out on the line, putting his heart right there for his son to tromp on, and then Bobby shaking his hand? Damn the kid. Goddamn the kid. 

Ennis felt Jack’s sigh and heard it too, and then Jack turned himself around so they were facing each other. Troubled, Ennis looked at him, searching his eyes and wincing when he saw the sad there. 

“He wouldn’t hardly talk to you on Sunday,” Jack said, “wouldn’t hardly look at you even when you went to all that trouble with taking us out on the trail.” 

Ennis touched Jack’s cheek. “It don’t matter.” 

“I want him to get to know you. I wanted all of us to .... I don’t know.”

He thought of Bobby knowing him any more than he did already, and the truth was he didn’t like it. Maybe that had been the problem, him not doing the looking back any more than Bobby doing the looking to begin with. Maybe he hadn’t done his part this weekend to make anything better. 

“It’s just one visit,” Ennis said, feeling helpless against what had already happened.

“I know.”

“He’ll be back come the holidays.” That was something, anyway. 

“I hope so.”

“He will.”

“I’ve got to give him time.” 

“That’s right. You do that.”

A thump overhead made both of them look up, and Ennis was grateful for the interruption. “Bird landing on the roof,” Jack said. 

“Yep. A big one.” 

“It must be past midnight. You listen, one usually comes to visit us about that time.” 

Good, they’d got off talking about Bobby. “Funny thing about birds. My mama used to say that crows came to steal a person’s soul, but then there’s that tale folks tell how storks bring babies.”

“They’re only stories.” 

“I know, Jack, it’s not like I don’t know where babies come from. Come on, let’s get ourselves to bed.”

“You’re not going to let me stay here and watch movies all night in my recliner?” 

Ennis pushed himself up to sitting. “Hell, no. I’ve got to get some sleep for work, and you do too. I can’t sleep good knowing you’re out here having a party.” 

Jack got up and went over to where the feather was. He picked it up and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time, and then he turned to where Ennis was still sitting, looking at him, and sent him a smile. Then he turned off the table lamp and went across the room to flick off the overhead light before he disappeared. Ennis stayed there in the dark for a bit before he moved. Jack’s t-shirt sort of glowed like a ghost, a mound of white on the floor. 

He locked the side door and made sure the outside lights were on, then waited until Jack came out of the bathroom so he could take a piss and wash his hands. In a couple minutes he was next to Jack in bed, both of them on their backs staring up at nothing, though now that Bobby was gone the door was open again, not shut. The clock, the only light in the room, showed Jack was right; it was almost one o’clock, Wednesday, September 26. It would be another full year before Ennis had to go searching for a card and some gift that would make Jack feel good. 

Ennis groped for Jack’s hand, found it, held on, and opened his mouth not cause of any once-a-year day. “Bobby’ll come around, you’ll see. And if he don’t, well .... I ain’t going anywhere.” 

He heard Jack swallow. His fingers got squeezed. 

“I know that. Things are going real good, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, real good.”

“Even with the stuff that’s not going that good, like Bobby.”

“And O’Hara taking Fancy from me.” 

“That’s hard. But still, you and me, real good.” 

“If you can get the coach to stop bothering you on the phone with his bullshit, things would go even better.” 

“He was just having fun.” 

“Sounded like a real good singer.”

“Yeah, he can sing.” 

Ennis thought of how he hadn’t done that. And no cake either. But he’d done what he could do. So much more than he’d thought he’d ever find in himself a year ago. 

“Jack?”

“Yeah? I thought you wanted to go to sleep?”

He still had hold of Jack’s hand, or maybe Jack had hold of his. How could they fall asleep like that, anyway? “I was thinking .... You ever wonder how come the two of us ... feel ....”

It seemed the silence had some weight to it, what Ennis found hard to say, though he didn’t know why, and Jack working to answer. Finally, Jack said, as quiet as the stars at night, “How come we need each other? I need you, Ennis.” 

“Yeah,” Ennis breathed. “Me too. How come? Not this being queer thing, but how come you and me?” 

He felt the back of his hand being stroked, Jack’s thumb at work. “I don’t know. I’m grateful for it, though. Some people go their whole lives never knowing what we have. I think of faking it with Lureen every day until I die, and I want to puke.”

Ennis put his other arm behind his head, propping himself up on the pillow. Sometimes he saw flashes of light in the dark when he looked real hard, or behind his eyelids, and he never could explain those. He stared now, but he didn’t see anything but Jack’s face in his mind. Jack wouldn’t make fun if he said this.

“You know what I used to think? It’s dumb, but I thought it.”

“What?”

“I used to think .... Not that I believe this, I don’t. It’s only a story I told myself.” 

“Okay.”

“I used to wonder where folks were before they were born. My mama told me when I was a kid we all lived in heaven before that happened, that we’d go back there when we die and it would look familiar, you know?”

“I’ve heard that said.”

“So I used to wonder how it is between you and me, and I got to thinking maybe we were kids in heaven together. We’d play all the time, you know? No work. We’d play tag and baseball and hide and seek, waiting to get called to be born. And then when it came time to get in line for coming down here, well, they couldn’t get us separate.” Ennis blinked a couple times. 

“You .... You thought that? I like that.” 

“Yeah.”

“My daddy used to say I hid behind the door when it was time for the brains to be handed out by the angels.”

“Your daddy’s got shit for brains himself, saying that. You’ve got lots of smarts.” 

Jack let go of his hand. Ennis could hear him roll over onto his side. “Maybe we weren’t kids. Maybe down here is like it was up there,” came Jack’s voice, soft and wondering. “The same way, us grown men, and we’re together now because we were together then, and this is just like ... a mirror. Heaven’s mirror.” 

That pleased him. Ennis wondered why in his daydreaming he’d always thought of him and Jack as little boys, innocent, not men with the body’s needs, what made them queer.

“Or how about reincarnation?” Jack was still talking. “You know, when you live over and over again? Maybe this isn’t the first time we’ve been together. Maybe this has happened before, and this is the tenth time.”

Or maybe it had happened one hundred times, or a thousand. It was hard to think about, him and Jack meeting up without realizing they were meant not to travel separately, trying to stay close even when they were fighting wars or trapping for furs or maybe sailing on oceans. It was even harder for him to imagine coming face to face with Jack the first time and turning away, never seeing him again. 

“Could be,” Ennis said. “Not that I believe any of this crap.” 

“Me, neither.”

Jack moved himself closer. Ennis put out his arm, and Jack came within it, resting his head on Ennis’s shoulder, matching the lengths of their bodies. Naked. They would have been naked in heaven together, waiting for this.

“Might explain Brokeback, though,” Ennis said. 

“It might.”

“And our birthdays being close. I slipped out first -- ” Ennis had a picture in his mind of zooming down a long blue sliding board that stretched from the clouds down to the earth, “and then you followed.” 

“Fast as I could. Didn’t want to let you out of my sight.” 

“Do you know how dumb this sounds?” 

“Yeah. But there’s nobody around to hear it but you and me. I’m not telling anybody.” 

“They’d put you in the loony bin.”

“Would you come visit?”

Ennis kissed his hair. “Nah. I’d come break you out, cause you ain’t loony.” 

“Loony for you.”

“None of this explains that, does it? Even if we met before, knew each other before, how come it’s different between us and anybody else?”

“Just is, I guess.”

One of Floyd’s unanswerable questions. Before, sitting outside with the old man that night while Jack was in Childress with Lureen, listening to the crickets chirp and downing a Dr Pepper from the guy who couldn’t drink beer, he’d wondered why the hell him and Jack were queer. Now it seemed he was reaching farther back than that, to something more down-to-earth. Why Jack? Why not Ernie Hubbard from ninth grade or Bob Morris from the road crew or Neil Kennedy who worked the Hanging M spread? Why Jack?

“Ennis?” 

Jack was a heavy weight in his arms, and he figured he was close to falling asleep. His voice was kind of slurred. “Yeah?” Ennis whispered.

“Love you.” 

“Yeah.” 

That was all the answer there was gonna be. That was okay. 

*****  



	5. The Greatest of These

“Tell me about him.” 

“What?”

Jack shifted in his chair, stirring himself from the easy silence that had fallen between them. Those were the first words he’d exchanged with Andy in the last ten minutes.

“Tell me about Ennis.”

It was three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, the day after his birthday, and the two of them were sitting in a wood-paneled office at the First National Bank of Raton. Andy had pretty much dragged him away from the feedlot to go along on this trip even though Jack was up to his eyebrows in work and had argued against it. But he hadn’t argued much, because he was stepping on tiptoe around Andy these days.

The vice president behind his mahogany desk had frowned when Andy had said he’d come to activate the feedlot’s line of credit. The man had pushed his chair back and left, saying he had to make arrangements and it would take a while. That had been twenty minutes ago.

Ennis? 

Ennis, who’d given him the best birthday he’d ever had or could have imagined. He’d given Jack all that stuff, but most importantly he’d given himself. 

Outside, through the floor-to-ceiling window that made up one wall of the office, the sun was blazing down on the town square, glinting off the windshields of the cars passing by. Indian summer had swept suddenly over northern New Mexico that morning, but the heat was restless with the sure promise that it’d be gone soon. Jack had wiped away the sweat from his forehead as they’d driven over from Cimarron in the Jeep, talking with Andy about feed costs and Heidi’s new dance class and how the fair had brought them plenty of new sales leads. 

Not talking about Ennis.

Ennis with eyes that made Jack feel like he was looking straight out into the sky, dark and going on forever. Ennis with the laugh Jack was hearing more often now, warming him straight through every time, because he’d done that, given it. Ennis without that worried frown all the time. 

Jack cleared his throat and stared at the leafy potted plant set in the corner of the banker’s office. For years he’d wanted to talk to somebody about Ennis -- _there isn’t anybody else for me but him, but how do I make the two of us work, how do I get through his fears and stubbornness?_ \-- but it had never been safe. Who could it have been? His wife? His mother? Another lover, one of those men he’d sought out because Ennis had forced him into it, hadn’t given him any other choice? He’d spilled his guts to Gary, but not in the way he’d wanted or needed; that had been more a gushing of anger and grief. He wished he’d had somebody to talk to about Ennis five years ago, but now he had the man, and he didn’t need the talk. 

“Why do you .... I don’t think I should.” 

“I’m sorry,” Andy said. “I’ve been thinking about your ... your situation. I don’t understand it. I thought maybe if I did ....” 

The phone jangled outside the open door of the office, at the secretary’s desk. Somebody walked by in high heels, her footsteps clicking, the sound fading as she got farther away. The secretary’s voice was a murmur; Jack couldn’t catch her words. 

“I thought maybe it would help me, in order to help you, if I understood what was going on.”

Jack lifted his head and looked at his boss, sitting with his elbows on the arms of the chair, with his hands folded in front of him, like a teacher. Jack put vinegar into his words. “I don’t need help.” 

Andy looked away. “You’re living a deviant lifestyle that leads straight to everlasting damnation,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Why ... why did you make that choice? What is it about Ennis that makes you do that?” 

Jesus. Couldn’t the man leave it alone? Or maybe he’d say it was exactly because of that, because of his understanding of Jesus that he had to speak up. Maybe Andy was going to stand in front of his congregation this Sunday and give a report on how he was working to save a soul, and he’d get a gold star pinned on his suit. 

Shit. Corliss was in that congregation.

Jack swiped at his face. “This isn’t something we can find common ground on, you know? I think it’s best to let it be.” 

“Oh.” Andy folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. He seemed about to launch into something more, but he only said, “Okay.” 

Ennis had called Andy a pipsqueak. It was true he stood five foot seven in his socks, maybe five foot seven and a half if a person wanted to be generous. Over the past days, Jack had felt mighty generous to his young boss because he’d kept Jack’s secret. But now Jack remembered how he sure had done most of the work before Kansas City and how, to be truthful, he didn’t know how anybody could’ve hired Andy to be assistant manager of anything, as mild as he acted in the world. 

“I keep thinking,” Andy said into the silence that had lasted between them for a couple of minutes now, “how you said you’d known each other for so long before you .... I’ve been wondering what kind of man he must be to ... ” Andy swallowed so fiercely that Jack could hear the gurgle in his throat. “ ... to attract a man like you. In that way.” 

“A real good man,” Jack said, clipping off each word. _Good for me in all ways._

“I’d gathered that much. Or at least you must think he is. But does he .... Do you ....”

“What? We just want to live quiet, not bother anybody, pay our bills on time, make a little money, go out to eat once in a while. Watch movies on TV.” 

“Together?”

“What?”

“Do you watch those movies on TV together?”

That had to be the weirdest question Jack had ever been asked. He looked at Andy carefully, to make sure he wasn’t being made fun of by this man born and raised in the heart of the Baptist Bible Belt, but he wasn’t. Andy was gazing back at him honestly; he really had no clue. 

Jack softened some. “Sometimes. Sometimes I like to stay up late for the old movies, but Ennis likes to get to bed earlier.” 

It was barely there, a drawing in of the mouth that it seemed Andy tried to hide, but he sure didn’t like Jack mentioning their shared bed. 

And yet, even with that, the pipsqueak went on. “I just wondered ... how together you two are. Whether you live like normal people.” 

Normal people being anybody like Andy and his family. Or maybe the way Jack and his family had been normal? From the outside, the Twist Family, Jack and Lureen and Bobby, must have looked like anybody else from Childress. 

“Isn’t being together the point?” he said, letting his irritation out. “I didn’t wait to be with him for twenty years because I was interested in living separately.”

“Twenty years,” Andy repeated, with about a million questions crowding together in his eyes. 

“Yeah.” Jack hunched a shoulder, wanting the loan officer back. 

“That’s the part I don’t understand.”

“Me, neither.”

“What?”

Jack leveled a look across the space that separated them. “We should’ve started living together when we were nineteen.” 

That seemed to shut Andy up, and Jack was grateful for it. He listened to the clacking of the brand new IBM Selectric typewriter that the secretary was using, that Marge would probably love to have but never would. 

The secretary had finished one whole page and was putting another one in before Andy said, “Carolyn and I are on different schedules sometimes. She gets tired caring for Heidi. Sometimes she falls asleep on our couch before nine o’clock.” 

Right then Mr. Randolph came back in, and Jack was spared from having to reply to what could only be some sort of kindness to Andy’s mind. He could do without that.

It was real clear that the bank wasn’t happy about the feedlot needing the cash under the line of credit that Corliss must have negotiated at the beginning, before Jack showed up in New Mexico. They probably hadn’t ever expected that the line would be activated, which made some sort of crazy sense to Jack, because, after all, banks only wanted to lend money to those who were flush. But a deal was a deal, and Randolph didn’t back out of it. Andy and him walked out with an extra twenty-five thousand dollars sitting in the feedlot checking account. 

Andy wanted to take the wheel on their drive back to Cimarron, and Jack said sure. The air was sticky-humid-uncomfortable. Big afternoon clouds were piled up high in front of them as they headed southwest, along the straight ribbon that was Highway 64, cutting across the open plain. It was almost too hot to talk, and besides a couple of comments about the weather as they started out -- whether the heat would break with a storm that evening, how Heidi was afraid of thunder -- they didn’t say much. 

But when they were finally about a mile from work, Jack stirred himself and said, “You think we put enough in the account?” 

Andy slowed down to drive around road kill, probably a possum, though it was mashed red and it was hard to tell. A scattering of ravens and one vulture rose up as they passed. Jack watched in his side mirror as they got back to the pickings. 

“Corliss says we’re in a lean time and we need a boost until we’re generating enough cash flow to sustain operations. We’ll do fine, so long as you can keep bringing the cattle in.” Andy shifted back up into third gear.

“I can do that,” Jack said with a bob of his head. “But I thought we were doing all right. I thought this last group I got would be enough. How much more .... How come we need to borrow at all? High finance isn’t exactly my subject.” 

“It’s normal for a start-up operation like ours to have a working capital line of credit. Don’t worry about it. Corliss knows what he’s doing.” 

“I guess,” Jack said, thinking about how Corliss had set things up so Jack had handed that envelope to Hugo, how for months Jack had thought the guys who showed up at the lot now and then were part of the Sanctuary movement, and how he’d been stupid enough to think Corliss was a good-deed-doer. Yeah, for sure, Corliss did know what he was doing, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing from his point of view. 

They bumped over the railroad tracks and went past an abandoned homestead, gray planks of wood fallen into the tall grass. Andy said, “Jack?”

“Yeah?”

The man adjusted his seatbelt for no good reason. “I wanted to say .... I want to apologize for asking you about Ennis earlier.”

Jack tugged on his moustache. “Right. Okay.” 

“No, really. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m only trying to understand. I really know nothing of your situation at all.” 

Jack sighed. “I’m like some Martian who landed in your backyard, aren’t I?” 

That startled a laugh out of his boss. “Well ... sure. It’s different from anything I’ve ever encountered. For instance, I’ve never been able to understand how anyone can live without God in their lives. I mean, how do you live without God’s hope and love and mercy?”

“It depends on the God, I guess, because there isn’t only one flavor out there, you know. And it depends on how you look on him, and yourself.”

Andy shook his head. “There’s only one true God, and that’s Jesus. And now the way you’re living, against all of God’s laws -- ” 

“Not against all those laws of yours,” Jack objected. “What about what they say, that the greatest of these is love. Right?” 

Slowly, Andy nodded. “Right. But ....” He made the right turn into the feedlot and then turned right again down the frontage road that led to where they parked the company vehicles. Andy was silent until he brought the Jeep to a standstill and pulled the key from the ignition. Then he turned toward Jack and rested one arm up on the seatback between them. 

“Is it possible that you .... I mean, surely you must think ....” 

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since our talk last weekend. Is it possible for you to .... I mean, you can’t possibly think you love this man the way a man loves a woman.” Andy made a face. “Emotionally, I mean. Spiritually. There’s a huge spiritual component to the love that Carolyn and I share. So, what is it? How do you think of it? Is it just a deviant form of lust?” 

So, this was the way it was going to be, Andy butting his face into Jack’s business because he’d figured out what he was. Now the man thought that gave him the right to ask anything he damn well pleased.

He wanted to put Andy in his place and say, sure, lust really did play a big part of it, and would Andy like to know the details? That Ennis had sat on top of him in their back room just the night before, thrown his head back as Jack had taken his dick in hand and made him shoot, and guess where Jack’s dick had been at the time?

But then he thought of Ennis sitting across from him at _The Spreading Oak,_ taking being there in stride, and Ennis with his glasses on, reading the paper. Ordinary. Ennis any which way, all the ways that had made living in New Mexico the best months of Jack’s life. What Jack’d had with Lureen wasn’t even close to what he had right now with his man, and that had nothing to do with the body-stuff. Andy really didn’t understand, talking about deviant forms of anything, when ... when there was more. So much more. So much good.

 _We fight sometimes too, because he’s jealous of my old lovers, can’t stand the thought of me being with them. He can’t see how he drove me to it, and I guess I can’t forgive him for doing that._ But he wasn’t going to say that out loud to anybody, what thrummed like an underground river through their weeks, and maybe they were on their way to sorting those things out anyway.

He opened his mouth to talk, not really knowing what would come out, but he didn’t get the chance to say anything at all. James came out of the mill, saw them and waved, calling, “Hey, Andy, how did things go with the bank?” And that was the end of that.

*****

At two fifty-one that Thursday morning, Jack woke up to a hitching, moaning sound that sent a shiver down his spine, because it sure sounded like a lost soul crying.

“Aaahhhhnnnn. Uuh. Uuh. Aaahhhhnnn.” 

Ennis was dreaming again.

“Uhhhhh.” 

Jack switched on the bedside lamp and then he rolled over, reaching too quickly, not taking care like he should. _Wham!_ The punch caught him high on the chest, stinging, rocking him back flat against the mattress.

“Ennissss!” he hissed, but he could hardly talk. 

Ennis kicked, going to war with the sheet. “D ... d ... don’t!” The sheet went down to the foot of the bed, and then he curled up, clutching at himself as he rocked and moaned some more. 

He should have known the stuff Ennis had done for his birthday would come with a price to pay. The daddy that lived in Ennis’s head hadn’t wasted much time showing up, letting his son know what he thought of a man who gave another man a recliner. And other things. 

Jack edged closer to the huddled form but didn’t touch him this time. “Ennis, wake up. Come on now, wake up. You’re dreaming.” 

That wasn’t going to work, as Ennis just started shivering. What was he seeing that could make Jack’s fella fall apart this way? Cautiously, Jack held his spread fingers over a tense shoulder, and then he dropped them on warm skin. 

Ennis bolted upright. “Jack!” he hollered clear as could be, but then he quieted, blinked a couple of times in the yellow light, and ran a hand up one of his own arms, as if to make sure it was really there. 

Jack sat up too. “Hey,” he said. “You were dreaming again.” 

“Yeah.” 

That was all. Ennis slid out of bed and walked away, his bare bottom flashing at Jack as he turned the corner into the living room. Jack sighed and laid back down, listening as Ennis ran the water in the kitchen, probably filling a glass to drink, and then as the door to the bathroom opened and closed. The toilet flushed a minute later, and then Ennis was back in the bedroom. 

He went to Jack’s side of the bed first and shut off the light and then went around and got in on his own side. “Come here,” he said, as gruffly as he’d ever said the same thing up in the mountains. He pulled Jack against him, snugging them together front to back. Jack tugged on his arm to get it over him all the way, and laid his own over it. 

“I sure am getting tired of this,” Ennis said once they’d settled. 

“Me too.”

“A man needs his sleep for work. I can’t be getting woke up all the time like this.”

“Just tell your daddy to go to hell.”

“Oh, yeah? You ain’t the one he comes to at night. It ain’t that easy.”

“You know, it isn’t really him anyway,” Jack said into the dark. “It’s not like your daddy’s come back from the grave to talk to you. This is what you’re thinking in your own head, way down deep.” 

“No it ain’t.”

“Yes it is, you old grouch.”

“Not that old.”

“Plenty grouchy sometimes.”

“I know.” Ennis touched his lips to Jack’s shoulder. It felt good. “I’m sorry for waking you up, bud.” 

“It’s all right. You going to tell me what it was about this time?” 

“Nah. There ain’t no need. It was like all the other times.” 

“Tell me.” 

“Not tonight. We’ve had some good days. I don’t want to spoil them with my old man.” 

“He doesn’t know anything, Ennis.”

“He sure doesn’t know you,” Ennis said quiet. “Let’s go to sleep.” 

Jack pulled the sheet up, and then Ennis pushed it off where it’d got over him. Jack got it up to his waist, and back their arms went to where they’d been, one over the other. The seconds passed, and the minutes. Nighttime sounds crept into their bedroom: the click of the clock, the creak of a floorboard, water in their pipes, maybe even the hum of the stars overhead. No, that was the hint of a hot breeze coming down off the mountain, barely moving the branches of the trees outside and finding its way in through their window, pushed open like it’d been through most of the summer. 

Jack felt the air against his face and along his arm, teasing the hairs there as if they were being touched. Even more, he felt where he was being touched along his back, his backside, the press of Ennis’s chin against his shoulder, Ennis’s knee shoved up against his leg. 

Maybe this was the best. Better than the dinner that he could barely believe had happened, better than the recliner that he wanted to make love in some day, better even than the feather that was hard to understand why it meant something, though it did. 

Best of all was what they had right now. His skin had been hungry for Ennis-against-him since he was nineteen. He could stay like this for days.

He thought of Andy. Did he sleep like this with his Carolyn? Did Corliss cuddle up with anybody, or James with his wife who’d given him seven children? The last time Jack had slept curled together with Lureen had been on their honeymoon. Maybe he should be the one asking Andy the questions, whether it was possible for Andy to love his wife in the same way that Jack loved his Ennis. 

After a while Ennis’s breathing evened out, and his arm around Jack went slack, though Jack kept hold of him. He wasn’t going to let go.

*****

At five-twenty-seven on Friday morning, Jack hauled himself out of bed, stretched, scratched his hip, and made his way to the bathroom. He was up early because he was still way behind at work, Andy having made things worse by taking up most of Wednesday afternoon with his bank trip, and he wanted to catch up. Besides, Jack was still looking for ways to make himself indispensable at the feedlot, the prize employee nobody could do without. If he hadn’t done anything else, Andy sure had fired up Jack’s ambitions.

He was pouring himself a cup of coffee from their Mr. Coffee machine when Ennis came in, letting the screen door bang behind him. 

“If I was still asleep,” Jack said without turning around, “I’d be mad at you for making so much noise that you woke me up.”

Ennis came up behind him and breathed in his ear. “You don’t make any sense this early. What’re you doing up?” 

Jack couldn’t say, since he wasn’t telling Ennis about how Andy knew about them, like he wasn’t telling Ennis how uneasy he felt over Corliss’s doings at the feedlot, but it didn’t matter. Ennis didn’t wait for Jack to answer but instead put hands on his waist and turned him around. 

“Hey, watch out for the -- ” was lost when Ennis took his mouth. Blindly, Jack managed to put his mug back on the counter. 

Ennis smelled like horse again, the way he often did, horse and straw and manure and spots of dust suspended in shafts of morning-crystal sunlight. He tasted like toothpaste and not cigarettes. 

Jack closed his eyes, softened his lips, and kissed back.

“Hmmmm.” It was the best thing, Ennis against him like this, his big hands spread on Jack’s Dockers-covered ass, rubbing slowly like they had all the time in the world, like maybe it was Saturday morning with no horses in the pasture and no jobs to go to. 

But there were horses, and there were jobs. Ennis touched his tongue again to Jack’s, just enough to make him think of going back to bed, and then let go. 

Not a bad way to start the day, being reminded of what a man came home for at night. “You’re frisky this morning,” Jack said as he went back to his coffee, blowing on it as the steam rose. “Are you like this all the time before sunrise? It might be worth getting up early for.”

Ennis ignored him and asked, “You coming home tonight normal time?” He opened up the refrigerator and started rooting around inside. 

“I might stay an extra half hour. It depends on how much I get done this morning. But I’ll be home before six for sure.” 

“Good.” 

“You bet it’ll be good. I intend to give you a ride.”

“Oh, yeah? I thought I was the one with the horses.”

Jack reached up into the cabinet for the Cheerios box. “That’s true, but I’m going to ride you like the stallion you are.” 

“Shit, Jack,” Ennis complained as he emerged with a carton of milk in his hand. “It ain’t even six o’clock in the morning.” 

Jack laughed, enjoying putting that mixed-up look on Ennis’s face, half embarrassed like always from Jack’s sex-talk, half turned-on by it, and always not knowing how to react when Jack said something nice about him. They settled down at the table with cereal and coffee, unusual because of the different schedules they kept. It felt special to Jack, and from the way Ennis sneaked a glance at him and then ducked his head, seemed it felt special to him too. 

“Thought I’d put an ad in the paper next week,” Ennis offered. “I can’t do much more with Dawn, so thought I’d try and sell him.” 

That would bring him down to four horses, counting Jigger. “What were you thinking of asking for him?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Not as much as for Samson, though. Dawn’s too old.” 

“Or as much as you got for Delilah.”

“Hell, no, that mare’s got good bloodlines.”

“Is she still acting up at the ranch, giving Rocky trouble?” Jack asked. He dumped more sugar on his Cheerios, straight from the old margarine container they kept it in. “Last weekend at the rodeo Matt said he was using her to practice for the bronc riding, and it seemed Betty Jo didn’t like that much.”

“She didn’t? Can’t say I blame her. Guess I better do something about that horse. That reminds me, uh, Trouble’s doing pretty good these days.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Morgan’s talking about riding lessons for Janice.” Ennis worried at his lower lip.

Jack kept his eyes on the side of the milk, where it said homogenized, pasteurized, grade A Vitamin D. “You going to do that?”

“Don’t know.” 

“She’s a good ol’ Texas gal, Janice is.” 

“Yeah, but she ....”

“What?”

“She’d have to come here.” 

Jack raised his eyes to look at Ennis over the milk carton. “Ennis, she knows we’re together anyway.” 

“I guess.” Ennis went back to shoving his cereal in his mouth, and though Jack wanted to say more, he didn’t. Maybe it was just early, maybe he didn’t want to bash his head against mountain-Ennis again, and maybe Ennis would figure this out on his own because it’d be dumb to let money slip through his fingers this way. Soon they were both finished, dumping the bowls in the sink and grabbing their hats for a day’s work. 

Before they left, Ennis grabbed Jack too, in front of the screen door that was letting in the pre-dawn dark and the heat that was with them for the third day in a row. “I think you better forget about that ride you were thinking on taking,” he said, close enough that Jack could see the flecks of darker brown swimming in his eyes. “I’m the one who’s gonna be doing the riding.” 

A sense-memory came to him, how it felt to be ridden by Ennis Del Mar under a Wyoming afternoon sun, grass scratchy against his cheek and nose, the scent of the earth coming up to him, Ennis gasping behind him. Jack’s ass tingled as if it was being pounded right then. “Is that so?” 

Ennis’s hands tightened on Jack’s hips. “Yeah.”

“Then I guess we’ve got a date, don’t we?” 

Ennis kissed him, a promise from the man who for so long hadn’t known how to make them, much less keep them. “Yep,” he said, and then he let Jack go. 

The Ram was parked closest to the road. Jack sat behind the wheel of his Ford as Ennis turned around, headed down the driveway, and disappeared in the dimness. He couldn’t think of another time in the six months that they’d been in Eagle Nest that they’d left for work together like this, and he liked it.

*****

At the feedlot it still wasn’t dawn yet, and he wasn’t expecting to find anybody there except for the caretaker cowboy who had night duty. A beat-up Toyota car was parked near the stable under the security lights. He figured Pedro or somebody else was around somewhere, probably down at the pens. But in front of the mill at the end of the row was a late model Chevy truck, what James drove. Jack pulled in next to it, surprised that James was putting in the extra hours when as far as Jack knew there wasn’t any reason for it. He wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, because he needed to get the schedule for late October firmed, and he needed a start on November. If he didn’t know what was coming in and what was going out for sure, he couldn’t get the lot filled. Nobody else knew how the cattle were doing like James Perez did.

Jack pushed on the door to the mill. It opened to a front room where filing cabinets were shoved in a row against the rough plank wall. 

“In here!” he heard James’s voice calling right away, so he went into his office. Nobody was there, but the door to the storage closet behind the desk was open, with light pouring out of it. Jack stepped up to it. 

“I’m ....” was all he got out. Down on the floor, kneeling on a stained tarp, Perez was trying to get the shirt off the body of a dead man. 

A body. Jesus Christ! What .... What .... Jack grabbed at the doorjamb, steadied himself, and stared. He was Mexican, no doubt, Mayan warriors in the hook of his nose, lots of Indian to him, and blood about everywhere, soaked through his shirt that James had unbuttoned. James had pulled him up by his shoulders and his head was hanging back loose. There was no question he was dead. 

When Jack didn’t move, just stood there trying to breathe, James glanced up his way, casually, and for sure he didn’t see who he was expecting to see. His look sliced right through Jack. James let go of the body, and it flopped down to the floor with a _crack!_ as the head hit the concrete. He stood up and faced Jack. 

Jack’s slamming heart counted out ten beats and then ten more, stretching on and on as he and James, the man with red-stained hands, stared at each other. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” James said, and Jack could see in his eyes the anger controlled, the thinking starting. “I thought you were Corliss.”

Oh, hell. 

“We didn’t kill him.” Perez jerked his head to the Mexican. 

“No? Guess not.” Jack was shocked his voice came out sounding normal, when all he wanted to do was escape and pretend he’d never seen anything. 

“We’re not in the business of killing anybody, you know that. He got shot at the crossing.” 

“Yeah?” He was afraid to say anything else. 

“Downstream of Juarez. Drugs, I think, because the border patrol usually doesn’t shoot. Fool.” James turned around and tapped thin-soled shoes with the side of his boot. 

“How’d he get here?” 

James looked at him sidelong. With his gray hair and his bushy moustache, he could’ve been a cousin of Santa Claus, and for months that’s how Jack had taken him. 

“The truck took him north with the rest, but Mortenson panicked when they started punching the walls to get him to stop. So he unlocked them, saw this guy wasn’t going to make it after all, and dumped him here. He’s halfway to Denver by now with the others. And we’ve got a body to take care of.”

We. 

Perez bent down and tugged on a stiff sleeve. The man was wearing a shirt like one of Ennis’s, button-down, light-colored with a little pattern to it. “Now that you’re here, you may as well help me. We’ve got to get him out of here before the workday starts. You hold him up while I get his shirt off.” 

Either stay or go, run off, now was the time to decide before Corliss got here. Maybe he had enough time ... but Jack had made this decision a while go, hadn’t he? Was he working at the feedlot or wasn’t he? Was he buying in to Corliss’s way of doing things or not? What was different now about the illegals he’d known Corliss and James were running? It wasn’t James’s fault that this man had got himself shot. 

“Jack? You don’t have a choice, you know that. Come help me.” 

He stayed, pushing down his panic as best he could. 

The smell coming off the body made Jack gag, worse than slaughtering a heifer with his daddy when he was young, hanging the carcass on the hook outside the barn where the blood would drain off. The man had been shot high in the chest. Jack glanced at the hole the bullet had made, neat, black-rimmed, and then he couldn’t take his eyes off it. James wrestled with undoing a cardboard belt, ripped it in two, and started tugging off his pants. 

“Why’re you ....” 

“It’s harder to identify a naked body in the ground than one with clothes. The feds trace clothes. No sense in making it easier for anybody who digs him up. But it’ll be twenty years before they do, and we’ll be long gone.” 

The man had a moustache wider than Jack’s, and that was all he was wearing by the time they were done with him. His dick was small, shriveled, but the same color as Jack’s whore, who’d read newspapers and ate tortillas and made love when he could and turned tricks when he couldn’t, and who maybe had been saving for a trip north, a wild dash across the Rio Grande. Without saying anything, Jack brought one side of the tarp over the man who’d made that dash, and then the other side, grateful he wouldn’t have to see him anymore, or touch him. 

He stood up and looked down at the canvas-covered mound. “Do you know his name?”

“No.” 

“No ID, no nothing?”

“The men with him probably knew. They’ll contact whoever he left behind. We just get them from one place to another. It’s not our job to do anything else.” 

“What are you going to do with him?”

James’s voice turned to steel; Jack had pushed too far. “You don’t need to know that. Unless Corliss and I decide you need to know.”

Jack nodded. There wasn’t hardly anything else he could do right then.

“Now help me move him out front.”

As they each grabbed a handful of tarp and pulled the body into the file room, a rumble from outside told that a truck was near. It made a turn and then came closer. It had to be Corliss, backing up to the front of the mill. James went outside, leaving Jack standing, staring down at the tattered mat inside the door, that somebody must have put there so they wouldn’t track mud and shit into the storehouse. The _Welcome_ had been worn down to almost nothing, He heard James say, “Jack’s here,” and then a murmur of voices. 

He put a hand to his forehead and pushed back his hair. Nothing’s changed, he told himself. Nothing’s changed. Just because now you see it with your own eyes doesn’t mean a thing. Shit. Shit on coming to work early. 

How come they hadn’t at least asked the guy’s name? Somebody must’ve known. His toe was sticking out, and Jack went down on his haunches to cover it up. He couldn’t be older than thirty. The tarp wouldn’t stay over but kept flapping open. He heard when Corliss came in but didn’t look up until a good thirty seconds had passed.

“All right, Jack,” Corliss said as if Jack had asked something, when he hadn’t. “If you would help James carry our unfortunate customer out to the truck, I’d appreciate it.” 

Corliss didn’t look like he’d been rousted out of bed early. He was dressed well, like he usually was, dark brown slacks with a sharp crease to them, a cream-colored dress shirt with long sleeves despite the heat. Jack didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him past that first glance, but picked up his end, the toe-sticking-out-end, and together with James he carried and then slid the body -- Diego, he was going to call him Diego -- into the back of a rusty Ford Ranger that Jack had not seen before. James threw an old quilt over the tarp. Jack stood up in the truck bed, feeling exposed, feeling his back prickling. 

Corliss was watching over what they’d done from the front step of the mill. A pair of ordinary work gloves were in his hands, and he held them out toward James. “Here, take these. I’ll have a talk with Jack and make sure he sees things the way they are. Or do you want me to send him with you?”

James jumped down to the ground, and Jack didn’t waste any time doing the same. “No,” James said, “I can handle this. You take care of the clothes.” 

“Yes. Take your time, do this right.” 

“No worries,” James said. He took the keys from Corliss and then drove out. It was barely daylight, only half of the rising sun showing, and Jack hadn’t been at the lot more than fifteen minutes. 

“Come inside, Jack,” Corliss said.

*****

He finally decided he could escape the feedlot around two-thirty. Corliss had kept him busy and close all day, getting Jack to supervise every drop off and every pick-up, insisting he go to lunch with him and Andy, though to the coffee shop this time. It was about the same as being wrapped in a straightjacket. 

He put down his pen and stuck his head in Corliss’s office. “I’ve got an appointment with old man Stengel to talk about three hundred head. You want me to cancel and stay here, or do I get to go do my job?” 

Corliss looked up from where he’d been writing something on a yellow legal pad and caught Jack with his steady, even gaze. “By all means, Jack, go. I never intended to deter you from keeping your appointments. Have you missed any others today?”

“No,” Jack admitted. “I’ll see you on Monday.” 

“Yes,” Corliss said, still looking at him in a way that Jack knew was meant to drive his point home. “You will.” 

Jack said so long, have a good weekend to Marge and the part-time accounting gal, to Andy, who was on the phone, and he left, taking care to look normal like he’d done all day long, not like someone who’d stripped a dead man. Stripped Diego. Walking outside was close to being shoved under a shower; he started sweating right away, feeling it under his arms and in his hair. It was ridiculous weather for the end of September. He got into his truck and peered up as he got it started, shading his eyes against the sun. There was a haze way up high, and the hint of clouds forming. Maybe they’d get a shower later in the day, and it’d go back to being comfortable. 

He sure wasn’t comfortable now. He gave the truck too much foot, and it jerked as he pulled out, but it was probably all right. Corliss wasn’t seeing his every move. He didn’t need to know that Stengel and his sons had canceled on him the day before; Jack was getting out of there before he got squeezed so tight he popped. 

Usually driving from work loosened him up from the workday cares and lifted his spirits as he plunged into the Carson National Forest. The trees came down real close to either side of the road like friends, and the Cimarron Creek flashed silver, beautiful with the sunlight glinting off it and full of fish, keeping pace with the truck almost all the way to the looping turn down into Eagle Nest. After that it was only a little ways to home. More than once he’d thought the drive was like his trips to Wyoming in small scale, only made right because he didn’t have to say good-bye except for a day at a time. 

But nothing was easy or loose as he left Cimarron. The first few Ponderosa pines looked like sentries or men with guns, and soon enough they marched close to the roadway, hemming him in like Corliss had done. Jack rolled down his window with a touch to the control and spit outside, then rolled it back up, because he had the AC on high. 

Damn, he was unsettled, but all that he could hold onto right then was that he had to get home. Ennis wouldn’t be there, but even so, home. Jack glanced at his gauge, knew he should stop at the Texaco, and cursed out loud. He didn’t want to stop for anything. 

He drove right up to the station since nobody else was in line. Seemed it took a long time for the numbers to tick over, but he stood there, his thoughts scattered all over the place while the gas surged through the hose and the pump went _ting ting ting._ He was careful, as he didn’t want the stuff to overflow, because it wasn’t easy to get the gas smell off fingers. There’d been a smear of blood on his thumb this morning; he hadn’t been able to wash it off until Corliss’d had his say.

_“We appreciate your discretion, Jack. We knew that you wouldn’t have any objection to us working with the fine people of Mexico to provide them with the opportunity for gainful employment. They send money back to their families, you know.”_

_“Sure.”_

_“The scriptures say to help those less fortunate than yourself. We’re doing that in a somewhat organized fashion.”_

_“That’s fine.”_

_“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”_

_Jack shrugged. “Nothing more to say.”_

_“Don’t worry, James will give him a decent, Christian burial.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“I like you, Jack. You know how not to ask questions at the wrong time, in the wrong way.”_

_Try living my life, asshole. When I was a married gay man on the road, a question asked at the wrong time could’ve got my head bashed in. I’ve got a college degree in not asking out loud but getting the answer I wanted anyway._

_“I’m sure James is grateful for the help you provided him. Hugo has also given us a hand now and then in what we’re trying to accomplish here, and we have rewarded him. You might recall the day you, ah, assisted us with that, rewarding Hugo?”_

_“I remember.”_

_“Hugo ... and now you. Don’t think we won’t reward you as well for your silence and occasional assistance. We appreciate your silence, because otherwise we could all run into trouble. All of us.”_

The pump in his hand shut off. Jack paid with his credit card, sending a false smile to the cashier, and then off he went. 

_All of us,_ Corliss had said. Jack leaned over the steering wheel and accelerated up Highway 38. He hadn’t said no. _Go along and get along Jack, that’s me._ But what could he do? Nothing was any different, not today from last week or the week before. Corliss was slicker than snake oil, but he’d known that already. What had been in that envelope he’d passed to Hugo? Payment for services rendered, he guessed, but then he’d known that at the time, right? Right? And he’d done it, knowing that.

He turned left onto County Road 19 and then left again into their drive, thinking of Corliss, the snake, and raising his boot to stomp on his head, feeling it splatter and flatten. Wishful thinking.

Inside the house was eerily quiet. He roamed through the rooms with nothing to do except stew, wishing he could hear Ennis’s truck drive up, the screen door slam, his voice calling for Jack. He stopped in front of the washing machine and then went into Bobby’s room. He left right away, because he didn’t need to think of his son right then, Bobby with the long hair in his eyes, not seeing him or Ennis much at all. Fuck.

His restless legs took him outside, down the yard to the stable, then across to the pasture, where he measured the distance from the gate around to the vulture’s tree with his eyes. If James hadn’t dug a deep enough grave, the vultures and the coyotes and the creatures of the night would get Diego. If Diego had stayed home, if he’d been able to do that, and if he’d died there -- smacked by a truck or conked on the head by a baseball or maybe struck down by cancer like Lureen -- then he’d probably be buried in a cemetery somewhere, maybe a family plot like the one Jack’s parents would be laid in up in Lightning Flat. People would mourn him, say prayers for him, light candles in his name. Jack didn’t do any of that stuff, prayers and candles or belief, so he wasn’t any help to that naked man buried under dirt somewhere out there. Besides, he didn’t know what kind of man he’d been. James said he’d been shot because of drugs, maybe. Could be he deserved what he’d got. But then Jack thought of Lureen, still and waxy in her coffin. Maybe nobody deserved to die, though everybody did. 

He turned his sight to the horses grazing in the field. All five of them were out, even the pinto. Jack leaned his elbows against the fencepost and checked him over; was this the first time that Ennis had let him out for the whole day? As if answering that question, the pinto raised his head and turned to look at Jack, chomping on grass sticking out of his mouth while he did, with the curve of his neck a fine thing to see. He was looking a world better than the bag of bones that Ennis had brought home, even though maybe not a high-class show horse or even one that could be ridden yet. No weight should be put on that back yet, Jack judged. 

But Jigger, he was right next to the pinto, regarding Jack with his big brown eyes like he wanted to know what he was doing there in the middle of the afternoon on a workday. The gelding’s coat was glowing and his tail swishing. Looking at him, Jack knew he had to get up on him and ride right then. He didn’t stop to think if Ennis would care or not.

Ten minutes later he’d changed into jeans, an old white pullover shirt with a frayed collar not good enough for work anymore, and his reliable riding boots that he’d used for years. He picked up his hat and went to saddle Jigger. The horse seemed willing to break into a trot, but Jack kept him to a steady walk as he rode along the pasture fence, across the tiny dry wash behind it, and then up into the foothills. Not even a hundred yards of climbing and already Jack felt he could breathe, his lungs not squeezed but opening up. The scrub brush that hugged the feet of the mountains fell behind, and he came under the first golden aspens and the scarlet-leaved scattered oaks and all the different kinds of pines, steady green even now in the fall. Friendly trees.

He concentrated on how it felt to be riding, alone without Ennis or anybody else. His feet jammed into the stirrups. The creak of the saddle. The reins in his hand, the feel of the leather against his fingers, and the way his legs were spread wide around the horse, bringing the saddle horn snug against his crotch. The feeling of power to be controlling the animal. The buzz of a late-season fly around Jigger’s head, with the horse flicking his ears to get rid of it. The trickle of sweat down his own back, and the sheen of it on the horse’s neck. 

But it was already a little cooler as they passed in and out of the shadows cast by leaves and branches, and as they climbed Jack looked up to see that he’d been right; though the east was clear, to the west a few late afternoon clouds were starting to show as they peeked over the Sangres, cool blue along the flat bottoms, then pure white as they drifted higher and higher. If he stayed out long enough, maybe he’d get drenched, it’d be fall again, not high summer, and the rain would wash him clean. 

What was he going to do? 

He kept going, like he’d done all day at the feedlot, because there wasn’t any turning back, was there? Through the hours he’d tossed around all the choices he had in his mind, trying to find a way out, but it’d been a lot like trying to pull himself away from Ennis all those years. He couldn’t see a way to do it. Besides, no other course looked any better than what he’d decided in one instant this morning, staring down at Diego while James, impatient, waited for his help. 

Without looking, he knew that behind him was their place, small, just another plot of acres carved from the valley, where the grass grew but not as sweet or as green as other places, where the soil was too rocky for farming and the house too rundown for most people. Where the fantasy that Jack’d had for his whole adult life was finally, unbelievably coming true, him and Ennis living together.

A deep swell of resentment rose up in him, at last set free from where he’d held it down all day. This was his valley. His place, his and Ennis’s. He wasn’t going to let Corliss or anybody else run them off. Fuck any idea of quitting and slinking away, and fuck Corliss for putting him in this position. Damn the day he’d ever answered the ad from the feedlot. 

Thoughts of going to the cops had raced through his head, along with some bad ideas of how they’d treat a gay man trying to give evidence and stay out of trouble himself. Especially since he’d done what he’d done with Hugo and with Diego, that was the truth of it. That’s what Corliss was counting on to keep him silent. No way could he risk the cops. The law wouldn’t see how he hadn’t done any of this willingly. Or he’d thought of quitting, finding a different job somewhere else in the valley or even in Taos, telling Ennis he didn’t like it at the lot any more, knowing that wouldn’t do any good either since Corliss had played him like a fish on the line, and he was hooked no matter where he was working.

He clucked at Jigger as the horse hesitated before an old log fallen across the trail, and then was surprised when with a neat hop Jigger cleared it. Jack grabbed at his hat and held on as a sudden gust of wind flew down the slope at about the same time. Moving Jigger on with a touch of his heels, Jack passed one of the branch trails that led to the valley floor; the main path he was on was cut here and there by other paths going up or going down. Four or five miles straight ahead was Eagle Nest; he was skirting Highway 38 the whole way, a slashing cut across the land visible now and then if he looked over that direction. 

But he kept thinking. Why should he give up the fine job he had at the lot when it paid real well, when he liked it, when he didn’t really mind what was going on? So what if James and Corliss were making some money on the side? More power to them, giving Jack’s whore and anybody else who wanted it a chance at the good life. Things would calm down. It wasn’t like there were illegals dying at the lot every day, and he bet most of the guys who had to stay there for a day or two saw it as one more step along the road to salvation. Gay men didn’t have any salvation, but he sure wasn’t going to stand in the way of it for men from over the border.

He shook his head. Nope, he was staying. They were staying, him and Ennis, who if he had anything to say about it would never know any of this. Ennis could keep on doing fine with the Buckminsters, keep on going to the horse auctions and the feed stores, and he could keep on thinking about teaching Janice to ride her spirited horse. The roots of the new man Ennis was trying to become were going to keep growing and not get pulled up. 

Jack slapped his hand on his thigh, startling a tiny, blue-winged bird that had been feeding on berries in a bush. The bird dipped low across the rocks and other bushes before swooping up higher into an aspen grove, where Jack lost sight of the flashing beat of its wings. 

“Come on, boy,” he urged Jigger, because they’d come to a flat, even part of the trail. For a minute or two he leaned over the horse’s neck and set him to a gallop. The air against his face felt good and the moving of the horse under him even better, taking him away from all the shit back in Cimarron. He was tempted to keep going at the same pace, but that would be dumb and dangerous as the footing changed, so he pulled the horse up. Besides, it was too humid to push when he wasn’t going any place in particular, just an accomplice to death wandering around.

Twenty minutes later he was thinking of turning back. He’d come to a section farther than he’d ridden before, where the ground pushed up strong from the valley, then evened off in a high bowl of wild grasses almost the size of their pasture. It rolled with an upslope mainly on the west side, where the trail skirted the high end of the field. As he took Jigger out of the pines and into the open, movement down a little ways caught his eye. Jack reined Jigger in, smiling as he realized it was somebody he knew. Ennis was here, up on Delilah. 

He hadn’t thought about what direction he’d been riding and hadn’t expected to meet anybody. Even so, Jack guessed it wasn’t any coincidence, coming home with decisions to make, saddling Ennis’s horse and then riding toward the ranch where Ennis worked. His mind was made up about things, but he couldn’t deny it was a fine thing to lay his eyes on Ennis unexpectedly. 

Delilah’s head was up, her ears back, her flank was sweaty, and Ennis had her on a tight rein. It seemed he was trying to get her to go when the horse wasn’t all that interested in the proposition. Delilah was dancing like she was some teenage girl at a barn-raising, skittering sideways. Ennis worked to get her under control; it looked like his lips were moving. Could be he was cussing her out, but more likely he was speaking sternly, letting her know who was boss. 

After awhile Delilah stopped fighting and settled down. Right away Ennis set her to a canter, as good a gait as Jack had seen from an animal. She showed such fine action with her legs in a steady rhythm, smooth. They rode over the field, one wide loop and then another, circling the single lodgepole pine that towered over the meadow. Ennis balanced over the saddle with care, ready to react to whatever the mare threw his way, Jack could see. But for now, anyway, she was behaving. 

While Jack watched, the light dimmed. He looked up and saw that the sun had dipped behind a serious-looking thunderhead, or maybe two or three built up against each other, purple-bellied and mean. Cutting into the dull sound of Delilah’s hooves hitting the dirt, there came a roll of thunder, but it sounded miles distant, from the other side of the mountains. Delilah shied like she’d been sprayed by a skunk. It didn’t take a minute this time for Ennis to calm her, and around the circle they went again. 

Finally, he brought her down to a trot and then to a walk. Ennis relaxed back into more of a slump and looked around instead of concentrating on the horse, and that was when he saw Jack, sitting patiently on Jigger with his hands one over the other on the saddle horn. Even after all these years, as many comings and goings as they’d had, it still meant something to Jack to see the quick smile that came over Ennis when he was sighted, and he smiled in turn. Yeah, he’d made the right decision about the feedlot, about staying here, about keeping Ennis where he felt comfortable and was learning how to feel safe. Jack clicked and got Jigger going. The horse picked his way down the slope until they were out in the middle of the grassy bowl and the two horses were head to head.

“What’re you doing way up here?” Ennis asked. “Sure doesn’t look to me like you’re working late.” 

Maybe it wasn’t the most welcoming thing he’d ever heard said, but the look in those brown eyes showed something else, that Ennis was real glad to see him, the same way Jack felt better seeing him. There wasn’t anything Ennis could do to help with what had happened today, but he didn’t need to. Here was the man who cared about Jack when nobody else in his whole life ever had. He bought the kind of beer for Jack that he liked, helped him wash his truck, hell, he even paid the telephone bill on time now. Slept with him. Being close, not even touching but knowing that here was his fella, that was enough to make things better for Jack. 

“Got out of a sales call early, so thought I’d take a ride,” Jack said easily. It wasn’t that far from the truth. “I could ask you the same thing. I thought this was public land, isn’t it?” 

“Sure is. The ranch is way down there.” Ennis pointed. “You can see the high pasture and that shed over at the end.” 

Jack held his hand over his eyes. This field they were in was farther to the south than he’d thought it was. “Yeah, I got it. That’s a narrow stretch of land they’ve got.”

“Yep, long and narrow, with the house way down by the road. I guess you can’t see it from here.”

“So how come you’re up here?”

“This mare. She needs the distance to tire her out some and get her attention.” Ennis lifted the reins and Delilah jerked her head and snorted, sidling toward the solitary pine that was king of the meadow. Ennis tried to bring her back to where she’d been, but she circled instead. When she finally agreed to stop, she was standing next to Jigger. 

“She’s a beauty,” Jack observed. She was deep in the shoulder and had well-formed legs, giving every sign of a horse with good breeding, though he guessed they’d never know what that was. 

Ennis nodded, that there-and-then-gone smile showing, and Jack realized how proud he was of that mare. Ennis slid his hand under her black mane, patting and scratching. 

“You’re a good old girl, ain’t you?” he told her. Then he looked over to Jack. “She’s more than a handful today, probably cause of the front coming in making her nervous. But I didn’t want to put off schooling her just cause of bad weather on the way.”

“She’s got to learn no matter what.”

“Yep. It’s not right that I sold her to Rocky and she’s not behaving the way she should. I can’t have her throwing Matt in the mornings.” Ennis brought his arm up and wiped the sweat off his forehead on his shirt sleeve. “It’s hot.” 

Jack nodded. His own shirt was plastered to him in front by a big wet patch. “The heat’ll break soon.”

Ennis searched the sky to the west. “Real soon.”

Jack looked too, where more ugly rain clouds were coming down past the high treeline. It wasn’t ever easy to judge weather approaching with the mountains hemming them in, but it looked like they would get wet for sure. 

“You going to have trouble taking her down?” Jack gathered up Jigger’s reins, preparing to turn him around.

“Nah, I think I’ve got her worn out now. Shouldn’t be a problem. You going back home now?”

He didn’t know why, but Ennis saying that struck him. Maybe because in the back of his mind all day he’d been wondering if they’d need to leave. Damn, but he liked that old place. If he ever got to live in some mansion on a hill with Ennis, it still wouldn’t mean as much to him as their first house together. “Yeah, I’m going home.” 

Lightning crackled up toward the summit of the range, causing both of them to jump in their saddles. Delilah half-reared up, snorting, and for a second or two Ennis fought to keep his seat before calming her. 

Jack frowned. “We’d better get going. This field isn’t the best place to be in a storm.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. You watch your step going back.” 

The rising wind was cool and again threatened to take Jack’s hat right off his head. He jammed it back and got Jigger going up the incline toward the trail, wishing he wouldn’t get soaked after all. But it wasn’t to be helped. 

Jigger heaved himself over the lip of the bowl and up to the path with a lunge of his powerful shoulders and a kick of his hindquarters, but before they headed north Jack held him back. He turned around in the saddle to see how Ennis was doing with his skittish mare. Not good. He hadn’t made much distance from where Jack had left him. Delilah was fighting him every step, leaping on stiffened front legs like she was a grasshopper. Ennis took in rein trying to get her to calm down, but there was a _crack!_ of thunder again, closer this time, and she jumped three feet straight up, showing how she didn’t like it no-how. 

Jack didn’t like it either. Under him, even Jigger stepped nervously toward his stable miles away, and his ears were flipping back and forth as if waiting to hear Jack give the go-ahead that would get them out of there. But Jack stayed where he was, twenty yards from the shelter of the forest, reluctant to leave. Though what he thought he could do to help Ennis with a spooked horse, he didn’t know. 

Another gust came up, strong enough to ripple his shirt and dry his sweat like it had never been there. He shivered. This might be a hell of a storm. He tore his eyes off Ennis to send his worried gaze skyward, but the second he did lightning flashed again, right overhead, close enough that he could hear the sizzle of it as it arced cloud to cloud. An instant later, a boom crashed next to his ear, even vibrating against his face. Jack cringed in the saddle as if he could get away, but good-horse Jigger knew there wasn’t any question, he had to get away, and without any warning he took off. 

Jack didn’t even have a chance to stay in the saddle. One second his ears were ringing from the blast and the next second he was falling off, flat on his back and sliding on the grass, head first down the slope. He thrashed, trying to stop himself, digging his fingers into the dirt, grabbing at a passing rock, and finally managing to roll over onto his belly and dig in his elbows. 

It felt like his lungs had been squashed flat as pancakes, with no air in them at all. He heaved for breath as the first heavy raindrops fell on his head. Suddenly, the wind screeched across the slope, throwing dirt in his eyes. 

“Jack!” 

A stronger lightning bolt crashed, hitting something upslope not far away at all. Jack tried to scramble to his feet, but it was a hurricane trying to knock him down and he couldn’t. Shit, shit! It was dark as twilight now. The thunderhead over them seemed close enough to touch, and the top branches of the lodgepole whipped about as if desperate to reach up and scrape against it. Framed against the tree was Ennis up on Delilah, trying to force her to where Jack was sprawled. But she was taking big plunges and leaps all over the place, as if she couldn’t stand to keep any foot on the ground for long. Ennis gave up on her. He jumped out of the saddle, dropping to his feet like a cat, letting go of the reins and hollering something again that the wind whipped away. He managed one, two steps closer ....

And then Jack felt it. A tingle that lifted every hair on his arms even down on the ground like he was. He opened his mouth to shout something, to warn Ennis to get away, get down, run, but both of them were too close, and the lightning was bound to get them.

Half a second before every part of him turned to fire, before he was picked up and thrown away like a piece of trash, before he was slammed down into black, he heard Delilah scream. Her horse voice was filled with agony. Maybe he saw her rear up and then fall over on top of Ennis, or maybe that was what lightning did to a man, show him the worst that could be.

*****

_He’d walked so far already. He didn’t know if he could force his legs to take another step, but for Jack he would. Ennis dragged himself closer to that statue that glowed down at the end of the dirt road. He’d been headed toward it for a long time. Years. He didn’t know anything, and he needed answers._

_His head pounded worse than after a bender. Back before Jack had rescued him in Riverton, he’d shook hands with beer bottles and whiskey shots. After Jack had rescued him in Riverton, they’d become his best friends. He’d hated himself. Hated his life. Hated his fear. Hated God._

_The statue was ten feet high, a horse of white stone, standing boldly between the two ruts of the road. He fell in front of it onto his knees, fighting the tears that leaked out anyway. He hated being this weak too. Jack had made him weak. Jack had shown him all the things he couldn’t do. But Ennis had to ask, and he’d had enough of church to know this was the way of it._

_Please._

_The horse face wouldn’t stay fixed. It showed first as Samson, then Delilah, then his old horse Judd, then Cigar Butt, surely long dead. Then every horse he’d bought and kept in the stalls on County Road 19, even Fancy, even the pinto, who whinnied at him almost like he was the one asking for help._

_Ennis looked away. He couldn’t stand it. All this change. What could he depend on?_

_But he needed an answer. He had to ask if Jack was okay, if the fall hadn’t hurt him, if the storm had passed him by, if the tire irons had let him be, if Ennis’s daddy hadn’t run him over with a truck or shot him during hunting season with a thirty-thirty. But what croaked out of his mouth instead was ... “Can’t.”_

_Can’t train Delilah right, can’t be the man O’Hara thought I was, can’t understand why you went off with those other men, can’t do any of that, Jack. And if you ain’t here ... he choked. Can’t do anything if you ain’t still here, bud, and okay. Can’t do this without you. Wouldn’t make sense._

_The whirling horse faces settled on one, Samson. Samson nickered and lowered his stone nose down to where Ennis shook like a leaf as he knelt on the ground. His nostrils blew warm air over Ennis’s head, telling him the truth that Ennis could never find in himself._

_Jack was gone._

*****

Jack groaned and dragged his arm over his face. 

A minute passed. He wondered why he was being stabbed by a hundred knives against his cheekbones and forehead and the side of his neck, why he seemed dipped in ice, and why there was a roaring in his ears. Why he was curled up in a ball with his clothes heavy on him. 

Why something was whispering _Get up. Hurry. Hurry._

Drums sounded like in Bobby’s band. But that wasn’t drums, it was thunder. And that was ... rain pouring on him. No, hail. Spitballs of hail. In ... in a storm he’d got caught in with Ennis. Ennis .... Delilah .... 

Before he knew he was moving, he was up and swaying, shouting “Ennis!” as loud as he could. But that wasn’t near loud enough. He could hardly hear himself with the wind howling like a coyote, the shards of ice splattering against the hillside, with the thunder still playing almost constantly, a dull roar from far away and then a full-throated boom from close by. He stumbled downslope, blinking against the water in his eyes because his hat was long gone, hunched over holding his side that hurt like hell, but, “Ennis!” 

How much time had passed? Where was Ennis? Goddamnit, where was he? _Jesus Christ, Ennis Del Mar, show yourself, show me your stubborn, wrongheaded self, because I’ve got to find you, right now. We’ve got a date, remember?_

Jack drew in breath, more of a sob. 

A white bolt streaked overhead, showing him the lodgepole bent over like he was, branches broken off, hanging and swinging, and in front of it a darker smudge on the land. He hobbled closer, as fast as he could make himself go, his feet threatening to slide out from under him on the slippery grass. Delilah was stretched out on her side, one open eye showing all white, her legs curled up like she was galloping, but she was ... steaming. Smoke drifted up from a long burnt stripe across her side, all the way from shoulder to tail, even with the icy rain pelting down. And under her ....

He ran around to her other side, by her head. Frantically, Jack got his hands under Ennis’s arms and pulled, because he was pinned face down under Delilah’s muscled neck. The horse’s dead weight was on him, Delilah’s mane spilled over his waist, his legs had disappeared under her body, and if she’d fallen on those legs .... Jack heaved, and Ennis’s head flopped forward between his outstretched arms, brushing against the grass. Jack choked, remembering Diego. 

He pulled again, putting all his muscle into it, feeling the give of Ennis’s skin, cold, too cold even to him shivering, trying to tell if Ennis was breathing, or if Delilah had .... 

A third time he tried, jerking his head back toward the sky, taking what pelted on his face unprotected, the sky that was dumping all of God’s anger on them, just two men, Jesus, leave us alone, let us live, live, we just want to live quiet, not bother anybody, and he wasn’t going to let go, his arms were shaking, his fingers gripping tight, and something was wrong with his side for sure, but then the soaked ground seemed to give somehow and Ennis slid forward. 

Jack almost fell over, but he caught himself. As soon as Ennis was clear of the mare he got down on his knees and tried to shove him over onto his back, but he didn’t have the strength to do it the first time. He took a couple seconds, trembling, both his hands on Ennis’s arm, and then tried again, fingers under his shoulder, more grabbing at his hip, up and over. 

Ennis’s face was scraped up bad, blood showing on his forehead and both cheeks, splits on both lips, and he was still. So fucking still. 

Jack leaned over, shielding Ennis from the hail by taking it on his own back, fingers raking over his throat searching for a pulse, watching for the rise and fall of breathing, but it wasn’t happening. Wild, he dropped his ear to Ennis’s chest and listened, really listened, trying to sort through the storm noises all around them to catch the whisper of a heart beating. But there wasn’t anything. Godalmighty, nothing at all. 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and laid there on his man. 

Ennis ....

*****

_The sun was real low in the sky. It was shining so brightly that it blotted out the rest of the land, a huge ball of yellow that made him blink but didn’t make him turn away. He was walking directly toward it, along the Sun-Road, next to stone-Samson, his hand on the horse’s high withers. After a while the sun seemed closer. Since he’d been cold for longer than he could remember, the warmth of it felt good on his skin. The road here was narrow, ordinary, but he could look far ahead and see how it got wider, and the footing got easier._

_Stone-Samson’s voice was like he’d thought it might be, wise and big like the horse was. He told Ennis they should turn away from the sun, that up ahead there was another road he could take that went in a different direction. Ennis thought about that, as much as he could with him carrying Jack in his mind as full as he could. That crowded out most other thoughts. Back when everything had changed, he’d picked Jack up with one arm under his knees and the other behind his back, he’d pushed out his elbow to support Jack’s head, and he’d been walking with Jack that way ever since. Every now and then he’d look down at him, at that face, but Jack never opened his eyes. Ennis knew he’d never see that blue again in this life, but after a long lonely time he’d realized that there was a chance he would if he traveled the Sun-Road all the way to the end. That’s what he was doing now. His arms ached with the weight, but he had a place to go. He’d never explained it to stone-Samson, complicated how there was the one thing on the outside, Ennis walking next to him for anybody to see like the Buckminsters or Floyd, and another thing on the inside, Ennis always carrying Jack, but he seemed to know anyway._

_They got to that other road. It angled off away from the light. Stone-Samson stopped, and Ennis did the same. You should go that way, stone-Samson said. You said you can’t do things, but you can. People recover from grief, or learn to live with it. Make changes. You’ve been grieving for a long time, haven’t you?_

_He didn’t ever talk about it with anybody, cause Jack and him were private, and kept so close to his heart that he hadn’t even let himself know about them for years and years. But he figured the horse could see Jack in him: how when he laid down to sleep, Jack was laid down first, gently as he knew to do, how when he drank water, he let some dribble on Jack’s lips, and how first thing in the morning he kissed those lips with his tears, cause he’d said no for so very long, and his Jack hadn’t had what he needed._

_No, stone-Samson said, I mean your grief for yourself._

_Ennis meant to look at him sharp, cause nobody should know that, but instead he hefted Jack closer._

_The man you were meant to be, came the rumble of horse-voice. Captured by your father’s cruelty, released by Jack’s strength. You were making your own self during those short months in New Mexico._

_Ennis closed his eyes and gave himself up to the whirlwind of memories, settling as always on the last one, Jack up on Jigger looking so pleased when they came across one another on the trail. That smile. How Jack always seemed to open himself up and Ennis could walk right into him, not just the way they hugged, cause that was outside stuff, but how Jack gave Ennis a place to be, to stay, to be known all through, sometimes to hide._

_You can still be that man. Jack’s shown you the way, and here it is. This road. Not the Sun-Road._

_Can’t, Ennis told him. Don’t want to, was what he thought. Was it important? Him? Being anything at all? He’d never been important before. Just ... let him and Jack escape into the light._

_Jack doesn’t want you to go._

_I’m taking him with me._

_With a sweeping swing of his head back and forth, stone-Samson disagreed. You’d be going alone. What you carry: that’s not really Jack, is it?_

_It is, he insisted._

_Not until you’re the man he thought you could be. Then, that would really be Jack you carry unseen, Jack-complete, Jack-fulfilled, and the two of you can go anywhere and do anything._

_I need to see him, Ennis said, broken, looking down at his man, always in his arms. I need to see all of him._

_Take the other road, stone-Samson said quietly, advice coming from old-as-the-earth wisdom. It’s bordered with pain, but it leads forward._

*****

“Ennis!” Jack shouted. “Don’t you ....” He shook a shoulder, both shoulders, and was horrified when a patch of the shirt came right off in his hands, burnt around the edges, sopping wet with the rain still coming down on them strong. There was dark red skin showing where the cloth had been, almost black. Jack shouted again, “Don’t you dare die on me!” and threw his leg over Ennis at the waist, ignoring his ribs that felt like they’d been beat with a hammer. He didn’t know fuck-all about CPR or breathing for another person, but he’d seen enough TV shows with those things, and he would put their shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger before he sat here on the mountainside and did nothing at all. 

He put his hands together in a fist and slammed them down on Ennis’s chest, letting loose like the storm was still letting loose on them. And again. And again. “Come on, you motherfucker,” he growled. Water dripped off his nose and chin onto Ennis’s burnt shirt; his face was a splash of white in the gloom. Jack stopped, hitched himself higher, and leaned down to those pale lips. He tilted Ennis’s head but had to use his fingers to force open his mouth -- worst thing, worst, but no, there could be worse, can’t, won’t let it be -- then blew in as fiercely as he could. Pulled back, got more air, remembered to pinch Ennis’s nose closed, then shared again. Didn’t know how many times to do it. Tried again. He didn’t know how long Ennis had been laying there under the mare, not moving, heart not beating, and his own heart about broke to think he might bring back half-Ennis, or crippled-Ennis, unknowing, not the man he loved, Ennis with his fierce pride. 

Lips against lips always giving life between them, for twenty-one years that’s how it’d been, and it damn well had to be that way now. Jack couldn’t have been out cold on the grass for all that long, not with the storm still raging the way it was. A thunderstorm like this, fierce as it was, didn’t go on forever or even fifteen minutes, not ten minutes, and he had to believe that he’d got to Ennis in time. He’d lived months in Amarillo thinking Ennis was out of his life, and he was not going to live in that pitch-dark, useless world again. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

If only he could get Ennis’s heart to beat again. 

He smashed his ear back on Ennis’s chest to listen but there was a thunderclap right then, and he had to wait until it faded. Was that .... He couldn’t take the chance, wasn’t sure, so he pulled back, seated himself, and brought his joined fists down again, three times, and then went back to breathe for both of them. He was soaked through, rain in his eyes, tears on his cheeks, please, Ennis, please. Oh, God ....

Please.

Movement. 

Not their last kiss. 

He jerked back, afraid to believe, afraid to stop, afraid not to stop, bounded by fear every way. But hearing Ennis struggle to pull in air was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, even when it was followed by a coughing fit. Jack rested his hand on the chest he’d pounded on and this time felt the beating of that stubborn heart. Strong. He sat there in the mud like that, connected, flesh on flesh, because he didn’t have the strength to do anything else. But inside .... Inside .... Life. 

*****

_The only pictures he had of Jack were the ones that’d got taken in a booth at the Fort Worth Stock Show -- Jack smiling, frowning, crossing his eyes, and giving the finger -- and his driver’s license picture._

_Sometimes during their mountain days, when he hadn’t seen Jack for months except when the slow memory-train pulled into Ennis’s station, he’d got surprised on the first afternoon at how Jack looked. And how he felt. More solid than Ennis’s dreams, hotter tongue in his mouth when they kissed, stronger laugh in the evening over a bottle, heavier weight when they wrestled in the tent, rolling over and over. The real Jack was more Jack, not the one that’d faded from April to August._

_Ennis walked along the new road and clutched the pictures in his hand, terrified that he’d forget Jack the way he’d been. The need to see Jack overtook him time and again, and he’d stop to look, opening his hand carefully, spend time remembering every other time Jack had raised the finger, or that time they’d been swimming when he’d crossed his eyes, or Jack’s smile. How could he have gone on if something had happened before Pine Creek? If the tire irons had got Jack and Ennis had been left with nothing but that old memory-train, and no Amarillo, no New Mexico at all? Fucking seven months, less one day, that’s all he’d given Jack, them living together at last the way it always should have been._

_If Ennis’d had anything, anything at all, he would have given it to see Jack again. No, that was asking too much, wasn’t gonna happen, but he would give it for another picture of Jack. Another smile, this time with that spark in his eyes that told of his feelings._

_But Ennis didn’t have anything, so it didn’t matter. But still .... For one more look, everything._

*****

The hailstorm had petered out, given way to a hard rain coming down on them in buckets. Jack sat where he was, watching Ennis breathe in and breathe out, ready to jump back into action any second. His hand over Ennis’s heart rode up, rode down. He didn’t move it away even though he guessed it must be awful sore where he’d punched down with all the strength he could find. He needed to be reassured by touching as well as seeing. He felt like he’d run a hundred miles, or maybe like he’d been hit by lightning. His clothes weighed a ton.

His eyes roved over Ennis, from his face all scraped down to his shoulder bare to the storm, the burned skin there in the shape of a candy cane. The rest of his shirt wasn’t much better, hanging on him in tatters, cut open different places with black slashes, like some doctor starting an operation gone crazy. His legs .... How could he tell how bad Delilah had crushed them? Jack had seen men rolled over by towering bulls who’d got up smiling, but he’d also seen a man who didn’t ever walk after that. 

Nickel-sized hail had gathered especially along Ennis’s waist, and Jack reached to shove it away. He swiveled on his butt and got rid of all of it anywhere he could see, pushing it away from around Ennis two feet in every direction. His busted side didn’t like it much, setting up a steady throb that tilted him over and had him clapping his hand over it. But there wasn’t nothing for it, and he kept going. By the time he was done, his fingers were frozen, his nose and his toes and about everything else. 

Which meant Ennis must be cold too. Jack staggered to his feet and made it the few steps over to Delilah’s still-smoking body. For the first time he noticed the stink of her, roasted flesh smell crawling up his nose. He gagged as he stood over her, then couldn’t help it, he leaned over and that lunch he’d eaten with Corliss came right up and out. He stared at the mess, weary and hurting and scared shitless, but he couldn’t help but feel glad he’d got rid of Corliss that way. 

While he was bent over, he reached down to touch the horse’s body; she was still warm, and that meant he had to get Ennis over here. He fingered the saddle blanket. He could use that to keep the rain off them, off Ennis’s face, anyway. It took him a good five minutes to worry it out from under the saddle, plus he was working one handed, his left arm clamped to his side. By the time he had it free he was panting and shivering and cursing the steady rain that had settled in to stay. 

He left the blanket right there and went over to Ennis, who was laying flat out with his face up, his eyes closed, his mouth a little open where the rain could go right in. It wasn’t easy, pulling Ennis over by the horse, not with fire lacing up and down Jack’s side, but he did it. Jack collapsed down next to where he’d shoved Ennis as close to Delilah as he could, squirmed until he was caught between Delilah’s front legs and her belly, leaning against that warmth, and then he pulled Ennis into his arms, trying not to let him push against the aching ribs but finding he couldn’t hold him any other way. Ennis was still a dead weight, but Jack settled him, his sopping wet head tucked under Jack’s chin. At the last, Jack pulled the saddle blanket over his own head, draping it to cover as much of Ennis as he could manage. 

He didn’t even have the energy to check Ennis over right away, like he wanted to do. It was hard enough keeping them together, transferring his shivers to Ennis’s clammy skin, but that had to be better than leaving him in the rain. He leaned back against Delilah and closed his eyes. 

What were they going to do? Finding his way down the mountain to get help: how could he do that when he was walking sideways? How could he leave Ennis alone like this, maybe have him wake up confused, not ... right .... 

But then, it could be that Jigger would be found by somebody who’d wonder where he’d come from, find out they were gone .... That was a fool’s dreaming. It wasn’t likely to happen, and for sure not in time to do them any good. They couldn’t spend the night out on the mountain, wet, with the temperature dropping after the storm. 

He rubbed his cheek against Ennis’s hair, whispering, “Sweetheart,” touching his lips to the frigid curve of his ear, then farther down, needing this connection bad .... He drew back when the salt tang of blood hit his tongue, unmistakable. Shifting Ennis lower in his arms, he peered down at the thin stream of red that had come from his ear. With his fingers he felt around on the other side, and the slippery blood was there too. Jack’s heart seemed to shrink. Were the ears busted out? What did that mean?

He had to go, go now, before the daylight hiding behind the clouds slipped away and it got even colder. He had no idea what hour it was; for the first time he realized his watch was gone, and in its place on his wrist was a red welt. The lightning had marked him too. 

“Ennis,” he whispered, not wanting to leave, barely touching that bashed-up cheek with his lips. There was enough light leaking through the blanket for him to see ... eyelids fluttered.

Jack froze, afraid something he’d do would send Ennis back down. He watched closer than a new mother with her first baby, inside screaming at Ennis to open his eyes, come back, all the way back, whole and okay. Outside quiet, holding him gently, looking down scared. 

First those eyes stayed open a couple seconds, not seeing anything, Jack could tell, not focusing on him for sure, then lots of blinking, then a couple more seconds open, then more blinking, and finally it seemed Ennis looked up and saw him. Really saw him. 

Jack didn’t feel he deserved the look he got then, the way Ennis’s eyes rested on him, like Ennis had been given a longed-for gift unexpectedly, undeserved, and he was afraid to touch it or take it but wanted to worse than anything. Needed to. Like he didn’t believe Jack was really there, and that in a second or two he’d disappear, and Ennis had to take him in, greedy, as much as he could right then. 

“Hey,” Jack said huskily. “Hey.” 

Slowly, Ennis reached up. Jack saw the tips of some of his fingers were blackened, but he leaned into the touch anyway, Ennis’s ice-cold palm against his cheek. Jack closed his eyes the better to feel it. 

After a couple seconds the hand slipped away, as if there wasn’t any more energy to keep it there. Jack looked down again, saw that Ennis was still regarding him like the best dream, and said, “We’ve got to go get help. You think you can get up and walk? Ennis, listen to me. Think you can ... Ennis, can you move your legs?”

It was like he hadn’t said anything at all, so Jack said it again with nothing changing. He got Ennis more in the hold of the crook of one arm, then reached down and grabbed at one thigh. “Can you feel this?” 

It didn’t seem to make any difference at all, and now the dreamy way Ennis was looking at him sent panic racing through him. It was like he didn’t know Jack was really there. 

Jack went back to holding him with both arms, and he saw how Ennis snuggled into his hold, in a way the man never would any other time or place except in their bed, moving his arms, yeah, and his shoulders, twisting a bit at the waist as if he had no burns and nothing was bothering him at all, but not those legs. They stayed where Jack had put them. 

And then of a sudden Ennis’s face went slack, and for a second .... But he was still breathing, Jack could hear the breath go in and out of his mouth, and that was when he realized the rain had faded. It wasn’t loud any more, more a spit. 

He didn’t want to let go, but he had to.

*****

_Some mornings he woke with his pillow wet, sometimes his sheet. Sometimes he dreamed, of being trapped underwater with the whole weight of the ocean pressing down on him and that he died like the men in the Thresher submarine. Then a rooster would crow, and he’d find himself alone in bed again._

_His favorite place was his lump of a mattress. He drank plenty, then laid himself down, couldn’t wait to shut out the world. On occasion, stone-horse voices talked to him._

_One chilled dawn he thought that he’d woke up, only he knew right away that wasn’t so. It was a dream still going on instead. Cause when he opened his eyes, Jack was there, looking down on him. Not shadowy, or young without a moustache, or mainly a sweaty body to roll over on like he sometimes dreamed, but Jack the way he really had been._

_Ennis had never been a good man, he knew, but God was talking to him that morning. Jack got such a smile on his face, one that he remembered like it’d been yesterday instead of the stretch of time that seemed to him went on forever, with no beginning and no end. Jack’s slow smile, the crinkle of his lips, the way his eyes were more alive than ten other men. Ennis saw joy being born in those eyes._

_His chest hurt, so much feeling poured into him, seeing his Jack again. That mole he had, hiding, and the lines on his forehead, and the way the gray peeked out in his hair, and just ... Jack. Everything._

_Ennis never wanted to wake up. If only he could go down the Sun-Road right then .... He felt he knew the way, a little turn, down and over, easy, easy to get to. Maybe stone-Samson had been wrong, and he could take Jack with him._

_Jack’s face against his palm was cool, and he had a bad cut along his cheek. Ennis laid his hand over it, but most of all there didn’t seem to be any way to ask Jack if he thought Ennis was complete and if he could take that trip with Ennis now. He dropped his hand when Jack’s mouth moved, but he didn’t hear anything. He supposed that was the way of a dream. Something was needed to prove it wasn’t real._

_But nothing could take this away from him, these moments he was gathering up like diamonds found scattered in a slag heap. He could even feel Jack’s breath against his face as he leaned in close, and the hold of his arms around Ennis. If he moved some, he bet he could hear .... But no, there wasn’t any sound of Jack’s heart beating._

_Still, it was more than he had a right to expect, a dream like this, though it brought with it the pain of knowing it could never be real. This time .... So good._

_He tried to lift his head, to see Jack one last time, cause he could never get enough, but he felt the end coming and couldn’t._

***** 

Jack took one step too far, turned his boot over on a rock he hadn’t seen, and down he went, landing on his side and the four sharpest stones on the mountainside, made specially by God to jab him. 

When the long dark turned to swimming colors, when the crazy voices stopped calling in his head, he opened his eyes again. He was all curled in on himself on a steep, treeless slope, shivering, his teeth clacking out loud. He could hear them chattering against each other, and he couldn’t draw even one breath without a fire-lined hitch. For a long space of time he couldn’t measure, fear crowded everything else out. He’d never find help if a rib shifted into his lung and he died breathing his own blood. Ennis was above him, two thousand feet west by northwest. Maybe three thousand, or four thousand, what did he know. Jack groaned to think of him. It was nighttime already. Nighttime! He must’ve blacked out for a long time after his fall. It could be four o’clock in the morning for all he knew, and Ennis ....

What he wanted to do was just lay there and shiver, let the wind keep whipping through his shirt as if it wasn’t there at all, let the mountain cold send him back to sleep. He was so fucking tired .... 

Jack’s daddy used to call him a good-for-nothing sonuvabitch. Called him lazy. Said he couldn’t turn his hand to anything useful, and then he’d spit in the dirt to add a little something to his words. But Jack figured his daddy had never been stranded up a mountain in a storm, with nobody around to help, somebody depending on him, the most important somebody in his world. Maybe his daddy would sneer at him like usual, say that if it had been him, he never would have been dumb enough to get himself in this situation. 

He rolled over, face to the sky, and kept his eyes open to see the clouds racing overhead. He listened to the mourning wail threading through the branches. There was nothing between him and heaven. 

With both hands clamped to his side, Jack made himself sit up, his head hanging low as he worked to not draw air in deeply, settling for short, quick pants. It helped, a little. He pushed against the wet ground, got to his feet, and started downslope again, trying to take care how he stepped. The storm had pushed to the east, and lots of stars were showing, but there wasn’t any moon. 

A line of trees was not far ahead, and wasn’t that where Ennis had pointed out that shed and the pasture with the three-year-olds? Or maybe he’d gone too far to the south. Or maybe he was still too high, up on public lands .... All those fishing trips, nothing had ever happened to them. They’d weathered plenty of storms, even up on Brokeback, with one in the Bridger-Tetons a lot worse. Why now? 

His foot went down unevenly again, a branch or stick or something went _snap!_ and like a drunk he fought for his balance, finally grabbing hold of a bush to keep himself up.

And that was when he heard it, a sudden call from not that far away. “Ennis? Is that you? Ennis!”

Jack sagged against the branches, a flowery scent coming up as he squeezed leaves between his fingers. “Here!” he croaked, but he knew he couldn’t be heard. 

“Ennis?”

“Goddamnit, here!” Jack launched himself toward the voice, a man’s voice he didn’t know, but he didn’t give a fuck who it was looking for them. It was coming from below him, where the trees were, and he stumbled straight downhill.

“Ennis! Where are you? Is that you?”

Now he could see a light shining. Whoever this was had a flashlight, and it was being aimed toward where Jack was making enough noise for an elephant tramping through the woods. 

“Here!” he tried again, not strongly enough, he knew. Then he stopped, wrapped his arms around his waist and took in a deep, deliberate, pain-filled breath. He finally yelled out, “Over here! Up here!”

The light found him standing there under an oak. The brightness dazzled him, and he put up a hand to guard his eyes against it. The sound of horse hooves came close, and he swayed. Water dripped down on him, splattering against his head and down his neck, under his collar. 

A huge shadow loomed up. That horse was Samson, couldn’t be any other. Somebody tall got down off him. It was Rocky Buckminster, the harsh-featured man he’d seen through a windshield the night he’d brought Ennis home, who’d ridden in the rodeo ring, but who Jack had never really met. He was wrapped up in a yellow slicker. 

The man came close with quick footsteps and then stopped. “I thought .... We’ve been looking for Ennis .... Are you ... you’re his .... Mister Twist?” 

“Yeah,” Jack panted, “that’s me. Jack.” 

“You’re ... you’ve been injured.”

“No, it’s nothing, I’m okay.”

“We got worried when Ennis didn’t come back.” 

“Ennis is up there.” Now that he’d found somebody, it seemed like some stupid TV show, standing here talking to Rocky instead of charging upslope. What did the man think, they were meeting at some church social? “He’s hurt bad. We’ve got to go to him.” 

“Hurt bad?” Not saying anything else, Rocky turned back to his horse. He pulled a rifle out of the scabbard on the saddle, turned to aim it at a tree trunk, and then calmly pulled the trigger. The crack of the shot seemed to get smaller in the shiver of the leaves overhead, but it was plenty loud anyway. What the hell?

It seemed loud was the point. Not ten seconds later came two answering shots, one pretty close, the other echoing from a ways closer to the road. Rocky looked around and turned his flashlight on a cabin-sized boulder climbing out of the ground, put it down and left it there to shine. 

He came back to Jack and said, “We’ll wait until the others catch up with us, and you can tell us all where he is at the same time. You’d better sit down before you fall down. You look all in.” 

“Dad!” came a voice hollering. “Where are you?”

Jack didn’t want to sit, because that would be giving up time when he wasn’t sure there was time to give. But right then, he didn’t have much choice. Jack went down, mainly letting his knees unlock and plopping down on the pine needles in a heap, remembering too late that what he’d told Rocky about being okay wasn’t true, and paying for it with a stab cutting through him. 

“This way,” Rocky called back, and he kept calling and waving his arms until it seemed he was spotted. A minute later Matt and Betty Jo came riding up, the boy on a smallish roan, his mom on a rangy chestnut. 

“Where’s Ennis?” he heard BJ say before she slid to her feet. 

“No, it’s ....” Rocky gestured awkwardly. “It’s the man he lives with. Jack.” 

“Jack? What in the world ....” She hurried over to where he was sitting, going down next to him with a crinkle of her red poncho. “Jack, you look terrible. You’ve got blood on your face. What happened? Do you know where Ennis is? We’ve been looking for him for hours. We thought -- ”

“Let the man talk,” Rocky said. 

“What am I thinking? I brought a jacket, a blanket, some coffee in a thermos .... You’re freezing.”

Betty Jo hurried back to her horse and unstrapped a backpack. “No, wait a minute,” Jack called, but nobody was listening to him. BJ shoved the pack in Matt’s hands, turned back to Jack and said, “Take off your shirt,” like she was talking to a five year old.

“What?” That came out of Matt’s mouth. The boy sounded shocked. 

She threw him an impatient glance even as she was reaching for the hem of Jack’s shirt and tugging at it. “I knew I should have made you join the Boy Scouts. Have you ever heard of hypothermia? He won’t be as cold without that soaked shirt on. Hold the light on us, I can’t see what I’m doing.”

Jack wanted to protest that Ennis needed these things BJ had, that they needed to get going, but she was a woman with a mission, and anything he might’ve said would have been smothered in the rain-heavy cloth being hauled over his head. She held out the jacket but before he could put his arms in some way that wouldn’t feel like a rhinoceros sticking his horn through him, she gasped. “My God, what happened to you?” 

For the first time he glanced down at himself. “It’s -- ”

“Don’t say it’s nothing. Men!”

He grabbed the jacket and eased in his left arm, way easier to do that one first. “Betty Jo, Ennis got hit by lightning. His heart stopped -- ”

Betty Jo gasped and her hands flew up to cover her mouth.

“ -- and he’s been up there unconscious in the rain, I don’t even know for how long. Delilah fell on him and I don’t think he can move his legs, so don’t you say bad ribs and a bruise like I’ve got is anything at all.” He struggled to his feet, shoved his other arm into the brown, pile-lined jacket that must’ve belonged to Rocky at one time, the way it hung on him, but he didn’t care. “We’ve got to get going.” 

“Going?” BJ stood up too. “You tell us where he is, we’ll find him. You’re in no shape to be going anywhere.” 

“I just got caught by the edge of the bolt, not full on. If you think I’m going to leave him up there -- ”

“You won’t,” she argued. “We’ll find him.”

“I know exactly where he is.”

Betty Jo’s hands were on her hips. “And how do you think you’ll get up there? We’ve got three horses and three people, and I can’t imagine that you’re in any condition to ride.” 

The low growling sound that he’d been hearing over the last minute kept getting louder, and right then he saw why, because a Honda ATV with Floyd Aguilar riding it came gliding in to where he was facing off against Betty Jo. Floyd must have been searching too and fired the second rifle shot that had come from farther off. Jack pointed at the Honda. “How will I get up there? That’s how.”

*****

Jack and Floyd left first on the ATV, roaring up the hillside through the runnels of water running down, over the bare rock shining now in the meager moonlight from an early crescent sliver, and bouncing and jouncing over what seemed every bump in the ground. Jack held on tight behind Floyd, not bothering to bite back his cursing, because this wasn’t an easy thing even if better than being up on a horse.

Rocky and Betty Jo were a ways behind them, riding up a dirt road Jack didn’t know about or he would’ve taken it down the mountain in his wild search for help. Rocky had sent Matt back to the house, telling him to call 911 the minute he got there, to tell the emergency people about that dirt road that cut up to the trail, to wait and direct them to it once they got to the house, and to make sure they knew they would need four wheel drive to get close and bring Ennis out. The whole time the man had been giving his careful instructions to his son -- _don’t gallop, take your time, we don’t need another accident_ \-- Jack had been settling in behind Floyd, grabbing his belt, grateful there was room for two on the Honda, and telling Floyd to take the fastest way up, no matter what. Once they got going, he counted every second.

Floyd stopped the ATV practically on top of Delilah’s limp black tail, spread out as if she was running, though she’d never do that again. Jack got off quick as he could and went to where Ennis was still laying exactly the way he’d left him, on his back, shoved against Delilah with the saddle blanket draped across her and then over his face, a couple inches from his nose. Jack lifted the sopping-wet blanket up and away. He put his face down close, his heart booming enough for both of them, and everything was okay once he felt the push of air against his cheek. Ennis was still breathing. 

Floyd squatted next to them, shining a flashlight on Ennis’s face. He touched Ennis’s hand, resting against the grass with no motion to it, no strength. “Mother of God,” he whispered. He made the sign of the cross, solemnly, and Jack wanted to kill him for it, that it was needed, that things were that bad. Then Floyd put one hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Help is on the way. Matt will have called 911 by now.” 

Jack sat down and pulled Ennis back into his arms, not giving a damn how it might look or what Ennis might think if he was ever to find out, but so relieved that he had to close his eyes. Floyd fussed with the dry blanket he’d brought, doubling it and covering them. Then he straightened, looked down at the two of them, and said, “I’ll go guide the other two here.” He left, trudging up to the trail that skirted the bowl they were in. Jack could hear his boots squish against the wet grass.

He sat there, suddenly alone again with Ennis, who was paler than the moon. He brought Ennis up close and breathed on his man’s face. Those eyes, they weren’t open now, the eyelids weren’t fluttering, and there was no sign of Ennis-within at all. Not knowing who he was talking to, Jack prayed without words, one big aching asking-for-a-favor, flashes of him and Ennis as kids playing in heaven rushing through his mind. 

Rocky and Betty Jo rode close, and Floyd came with his sturdy, steady walk behind them. Betty Jo got off her horse right away and got in under the blanket, stretching herself out kind of awkwardly, but saying she had plenty of body heat to spare and reaching her pudgy arm over Ennis’s waist. Floyd poured some coffee from BJ’s thermos, passing some to Jack, who tried to get some into Ennis but watched it dribble down his chin instead. He drank some himself and passed the cup to Betty Jo. He saw Rocky glance at Jack and his wife curled around Ennis, and then look away.

“Floyd,” Rocky said, “you stay here. I’ll go to where help will be coming up and make sure they don’t miss us. I’ll get them as close as I can.” 

“We’ll carry him down if we have to,” Floyd said. “The two of us can do it.”

“We won’t need to,” Rocky said. “I think they’ll be able to come along the trail up there, maybe within a hundred yards.” 

He got down on one knee next to Betty Jo. Jack watched as, real gently, he kissed his wife and said, “I won’t be long.” She held his hand until he stood up, their fingers slipping apart. He got back on Samson and rode away. Jack blinked and looked down on Ennis again. His heart was a frozen block of fear, hardly warmed at all by the steady heartbeat under his hand. He couldn’t lose Ennis, not now, he couldn’t.

Floyd began walking around, though first he hunched by Delilah’s head and closed her staring eye. He found Ennis’s good Stetson, or half of it, charred, the one that Jack had given him for Valentine’s Day when they’d still been apart. Then Floyd brought back Jack’s hat, crushed and not much good anymore, but with the hawk feather that Ennis had given him just three days before still in the band. “Would you take that out?” Jack asked. “Give it here.” He took it between his fingers and went back to holding Ennis close, the feather brushing against his cheek.

Nobody talked much. Jack was too tired to want to. He couldn’t take his eyes off Ennis, staring at the gashes on his face, the twin runs of blood from his ears, crusting up now.  
“He’s going to be all right,” Betty Jo said. 

Jack nodded, his chin brushing against Ennis’s hair. Sure.

Ennis’s breathing got louder, whistling in and out of his mouth, and it seemed like something of an effort for his chest to go up, then down, then up again. Jack remembered what Ennis had told him, of the night he’d spent out on the prairie last November, with only a shirt on, drunk out of his mind because Jack had left him. He’d got real sick that time. 

“Where are they?” Floyd fretted, clapping his hand on the ATV handlebars and looking downslope. “Maybe we should .... We could have had him down by now.” 

Betty Jo shook her head. “How? I’m sure Matt called as soon as he got to the house. Rocky will bring them here soon.” 

Soon. What did that mean anyway, Jack wondered. Seemed like they’d been here hours.

“Suppose they can’t get up this high. We might have to -- ”

“Floyd, stop it,” BJ said sort of sharp. “I just came up that road, and it’s passable. They can’t go fifty miles an hour along it, but they’ll make it. Besides, it’s only been twenty minutes.”

Ten minutes later the sound of a vehicle bumping along the trail that Jack had ridden Jigger on hours before told that help was almost there. Jack gripped Ennis’s lax hand in his, and suddenly realized he had to move away from him. There was no telling what people might think if they saw them this way, how they’d react. It might mean Ennis didn’t get the right care, their full attention, not if those that had come were disgusted by two men together the way most of the world was. Jack touched Ennis’s hair as if he didn’t have the right to touch any closer, but it was just for now, not later, not for always. Careful of his side, and with a lump in his throat, Jack lifted Ennis up some and eased out from under him. A half minute later a white pick-up -- with a hard-shell topper on back and an emergency light on top of the cab -- came into view, barely visible upslope. It stopped with a jerk. 

Two men wearing zipped-up red parkas that said _Colfax County Emergency Services_ jumped out. They came trotting down the hillside. They didn’t ask questions other than to say “Lightning strike? Cardiac arrest?” then pulled off the blanket and knelt down on Ennis’s one side that wasn’t against Delilah. Jack didn’t go far. Betty Jo was next to him. The men went to work checking Ennis over, pulling stethoscopes and other stuff from canvas bags they each had.

“Pressure eighty-five over forty,” the red-headed one with a nametag that read Toby Larsen said. Jack knew those numbers couldn’t be good. 

“Shallow respirations,” the short guy named Clarence Abernathy said. He pressed fingers against Ennis’s wrist and timed the beats. “Thirteen.”

Was that okay? Jack didn’t know.

Toby stuck some sort of pencil thing in Ennis’s ear. Jack wanted to say that he should be careful, but he bit his lip instead. Toby read off it once it had beeped. “Temperature’s ninety-two point one.” Jack had measured Bobby’s temperature enough times when he was a kid to know that was six degrees low. He didn’t know a person could still be alive with a temperature that low. His eyes found Betty Jo, but she looked as scared as he felt. Her one hand was up over her mouth again, her other one wrapped around her own waist. Rocky was standing with Floyd a ways back. 

“Second degree burns over the torso, lacerations of the face ....” Toby turned and asked Betty Jo, “Was he thrown any distance?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack answered for her. “The horse fell on him, though.”

Clarence looked at Toby and said, “Let’s get him inside where it’s warmer. Could be internal bleeding, could be fractures.” Carefully -- Jack had to give them that -- they put Ennis into a neck brace and then onto a board, strapping him in like they knew what they were doing, and wrapping him up with a silver sheet that Clarence said was warmer than any blanket. They put hands to each end of the board and lifted and, with the rest of them trailing behind and Jack real conscious of how slippery the grass was, they carried Ennis up the slope and then over to where the truck was. It wasn’t fitted out exactly like an ambulance, but there was equipment there, and straps to hold somebody down, somebody who was unconscious and needed to be protected from sliding around. Clarence put a clamp on Ennis’s finger that gave readings on a screen that was bolted to the hard-top. Jack hovered by the open back, where warm air washed out. He heard them murmur “blood oxygenation eighty-six percent” over the sound of a heater going on high. They wasted no time putting a mask on Ennis’s face. Only his closed eyes showed. Nothing of what they were doing eased the dread tearing through Jack’s chest. 

Jack backed off when Clarence unwrapped Ennis and started cutting the jeans off him with a big scissors. Toby hopped out and said, “Okay, who found him? You? Tell me about the cardiac arrest. How long do you think he was out?”

Jack pulled the old jacket closer and managed to get out a few sentences about how he’d come on Ennis and what he’d done when he’d seen there wasn’t any heartbeat, being careful with what he said, trying to give no hints that they’d been talking or together. The Buckminsters didn’t know, they couldn’t say that wasn’t how it’d happened. Toby made notes on a clipboard. Then he turned to Betty Jo and asked, “You his wife?” 

“No, I’m his employer, along with my husband here.” 

“You’d better contact his wife,” Toby said. “She needs to be at the hospital to give her permission for procedures.” 

“He isn’t married,” Betty Jo murmured, glancing at Jack. “How ... how is he?” 

“Ma’am, I can’t say. We’ll let the doctors decide. If we had that new helicopter evacuation service in this county, we’d use that, but it’s only down in Albuquerque. We’ll be leaving now for Holy Cross Hospital in Taos. Lightning strikes and cardiac arrest aren’t small things. Will somebody follow who can take responsibility for Mister Del Mar until we can contact his next of kin?” 

Next of kin. If Jack wasn’t already ice inside, that would’ve done it. Junior and Jenny. Alma, maybe, but definitely not him. 

It seemed like Betty Jo was waiting for him to say something, but he jammed one fist in the coat pocket instead. Not him.

“Of course,” he heard her tell the paramedic. “We need to drive Jack here to the emergency room too, so we’ll be coming in behind you.”

Toby reached for the stethoscope he had slung around his neck. “I didn’t know you were injured. Should we check you over?”

Jack shook his head in a definite _No._ “I’ll come in with them,” he said quiet. “Don’t wait to leave. I think you’d better get Ennis to a hospital quick as you can.” 

“I think so too,” Toby said seriously. 

Jack stood in the high meadow of the Carson National Forest above the Buckminster ranch, where he’d come smack up against the limits of what he had and what he could claim to be. He watched as Toby shut Ennis away from his eyes, closing him and Clarence in together in the back of the pick-up. Toby climbed into the driver’s seat, and then Jack swallowed against the sight of the truck pulling away. Just like that, gone away. Just that one time when Ennis had opened his eyes, looking at him needfully, nothing like the blank face covered by the black rubber mask giving him oxygen. Jack rubbed the base of his throat, remembering how he hadn’t been able to find a heartbeat, and how still Ennis had been as Toby and Clarence had lifted him.

The headlights cut through the dark, and then the little dome on top turned on, sending red light flashing blood against the rocks and the dripping limbs of the trees. Betty Jo stood next to Jack as even the pulsing lights disappeared, and they were left the way they’d started, with flashlights and a dead horse. 

The paramedics couldn’t have been there more than ten minutes or so. Here and then gone again. Was it this morning that Jack had pulled the clothes off a dead man? 

Jack knew that he’d ride down the mountain behind Floyd, an easier ride since they’d be on a road, and that somebody would drive him to Holy Cross. He knew that he likely had broken ribs, and some doctor would do something for him. He knew that he was bone weary, so tired now that Ennis had been taken away that he was having a tough time staying upright. He’d been ignoring the pain in his side for a long time, but now he couldn’t push it down any more. He knew it’d be hard to endure the trip to the ranch house and then into town.

“Come on, Jack,” Betty Jo said, kindly, taking his arm. “Let’s go.”

He went, still holding the feather that Ennis had given him for his birthday. 

*****


	6. Refugees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to the astonishingly perceptive and imaginative Elke, who is helping me with _Force of Nature: Storm_ as content editor. I really, honestly, could not be writing without her loving support and friendship.

“I don’t care what your records say, I know he’s in this hospital!”

Jack gripped the edge of the hospital bed mattress with one hand and about crushed the telephone with his other. He was going to kill somebody soon if he didn’t get answers. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but I have no record of an Ennis Del Mar.” The woman’s voice didn’t sound like she was sorry.

“Well, check again!”

“Sir, I’ll do my best, but you getting angry won’t help.”

Jack tried to calm down even though it felt like firecrackers were going off under his skin. He knew better than to take a deep breath, not with the rib belt the doctor had strapped him into, right next to his skin and under the goddamned hospital gown somebody must have wrestled him into. “I know he’s here, I saw him in the Emergency Room last night. I was right next to him in the Emergency Room last night! Maybe he’s still there, why don’t you check -- ”

“That’s very doubtful. What time last night?”

“Damnit, I don’t know.”

“You’re not being very helpful. Surely you have some idea.”

“Maybe around midnight? One o’clock?”

“It’s ten in the morning now. They never keep patients in the ER that long.”

Jack swallowed. “He was hurt pretty bad. Maybe he is still there.”

“No, he would have been admitted by now or ....”

“Or what?” Jack ground out.

“Or .... I’m sorry, sir, but have you considered that perhaps your friend ... expired?”

“Sonuvabitch.” Jack slammed the phone down and then gasped when his ribs protested. 

He sat on the edge of the bed, the heels of his feet propped on the metal rung, and dropped his head in his hands. All he wanted to do was find out how Ennis was. Damn the doctor Jack had seen last night, who must have included a sedative with whatever else he’d put in that shot, and damn his own weakness that he hadn’t been able to fight off the muzziness when he’d started to feel himself fading, right there with the doctor and a nurse standing over him. There wasn’t any question that he’d been admitted overnight, because this was a hospital room he was in, the other bed rumpled but empty for now, and the sun proving that he’d slept long and hard after all that had happened the day before. 

Who knew what else had happened? When Rocky and Betty Jo had steered him into the Holy Cross Hospital Emergency Room, with him leaning over to one side like a ship blown sideways in a hurricane, it hadn’t taken long to find Ennis with the doctors working over him. Jack had got a glimpse of him -- two clear tubes up his nose, electrodes under his nipples, machines beeping and measuring, green screens glowing -- Jack had got that one glimpse and then he was hustled away to his own cubicle next door. He’d thought: at least I’m close. I’ll hear what happens. The Buckminsters will let me know. 

And then he’d fucking fallen asleep. 

_Good-for-nothing,_ whispered a voice from his past. 

Long ago, long ago, not now. Damn it, not now!

Christ. He rubbed his face all over, but that couldn’t get rid of how he felt, like a man who’d been depended on and failed. Like his daddy had always said.

_Ennis, where are you?_

He had the wild notion that he’d know if something had happened, something really bad, something he couldn’t even think to himself. Something would snap inside of him, right? Even if they were miles distant from each other in Wyoming and in Texas, or at the north pole and the south pole, or down in a cave and up with the clouds. Something basic in him would change, like not being able to breathe or see or walk. He’d _know._ And he didn’t know, so Ennis was ... okay. 

Or maybe that shot he’d got had twisted his thoughts and he was crazy, thinking that, because nobody could tell how another person was from a distance. 

Nursing his anger because what lurked underneath it was worse, he swore out loud. “Fuck!” He was going to start roaming the halls looking, but not dressed like this. He got his feet onto the floor and then slid his weight forward until he was standing, and it wasn’t bad at all. He made his way to a wood wardrobe against the wall, under where the TV was on a rack set up high. Inside were some empty hangers and a folded up metal walker, some boxes of tissues piled high, and those plastic bowls a person always did find in hospitals, but not his clothes. 

The door made a satisfying noise when he slammed it shut, not fit behavior for a place like this, but then he had no reason for being here. 

There was more than one way to skin a cat. He got back to the bed, eased himself back onto it, and picked up the phone again. He got an outside line and had his finger over the numbers ready to dial for information, because he sure didn’t know what the number for the Buckminster ranch was, when movement at the doorway made him look up. 

“Betty Jo,” he said, not wasting any time with hellos or how-are-you-doing-I’m-fine and before even putting down the phone. “How’s Ennis? Where’s Ennis?”

She didn’t look like the woman who’d gone under a blanket with him on the mountainside, determined to keep a man warm enough to live. Her short hair was dry and combed, not plastered to her head like last night, her no-nonsense jeans and shirt were dry and not wrinkled, wet, and muddy, and her washed-out blue eyes, that last Jack remembered had been swimming with tears, those were dry now too. But worried.

“He’s in Santa Fe,” she said right away, as she came closer. “At St. Vincent’s Hospital.”

“What?” At least ... not expired, like that phone receptionist had said. They wouldn’t have taken him to another hospital if .... “They ... they couldn’t handle him here? What’s wrong?”

She dumped the purse she had over her shoulder onto the uncomfortable-looked chair that every hospital room had. “Holy Cross is small, not even fifty beds, I think. They aren’t equipped for a case like his. They transferred him practically as soon as he got here. Jack, he isn’t conscious yet.”

“Not conscious? How do you know that?” 

“Rocky went with him. He hasn’t had any sleep at all. Did you sleep?”

“Rocky called you?”

“Yes, right before I left the ranch to come here, so I could give you a report.”

“What else? Besides Ennis not waking up yet, what else?”

“I don’t ... he didn’t say. The burns, for sure, but they put some sort of dressing on those last night before the transfer. I guess ... I don’t know. But I’m going to Santa Fe as soon as I leave you, so Rocky can come home and get some rest. I’ll stay with Ennis, and I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” 

Jack slid to his feet, swaying a bit before he caught his balance by grabbing the bedstand. “I’m going with you.” 

Betty Jo took a step back from him. “No, Jack. You’re hurt too. You need to -- ”

“I’m not that hurt.” 

“Do you remember what the doctor said last night?”

“Sure I do, but -- ”

“You have cracked ribs. The stitches on your cheek. You were struck by lightning, for God’s sake!”

“That isn’t-- ”

“You’ve got to make sure you don’t weaken your system and catch pneumonia. Even a cold after the exposure last night would be bad, because coughing or sneezing will be very painful with your -- ”

“Betty Jo.” Jack looked down on her. The top of her mousy-colored brown head barely came even with his shoulder. He was used to a tall woman. Lureen had been five foot eight and a half in her stocking feet, and she’d had spirit to spare even when it had turned brittle toward the end of their marriage. BJ seemed the opposite in looks, and dress, and the way she took on life, and yet pretty much the same in the spirit department. “Remember I said I used to be a bullrider?”

“Yes, but that has nothing to do with -- ”

“I’ve seen men ride with busted ribs so many times I can’t count them. They went up on a bull knowing they were going to be coming off that bull hard. And now you want me to stay in this bed when Ennis .... . I can’t do that.”

“But you’re supposed to stay here two or three days, the doctor -- ”

“Where are my clothes?” 

“I can’t -- ”

“I swear, I’ll walk out of here flashing my ass in this nightgown thing if you don’t help me.” At the distress on her face, he backed down some and leaned against the bed. “Betty Jo. Please.” Then, remembering that kiss he’d seen on the mountain when Rocky had left, he added, “You’d do the same as me if it was Rocky in Santa Fe, and Ennis watching over him. And if I was in your shoes, I’d give me a ride and find me my clothes. I mean, give you a ride ....” He passed a hand across his eyes and kept it there. “You know what I mean, don’t you?” He’d walk to Santa Fe if he had to.

Out in the corridor there was a rattle of wheels, maybe some nurse pushing a cart along the linoleum. Inside the room, there was silence until the cart was long past. 

“I do know what you mean,” Betty Jo said. “I’m ashamed of myself. Of course I understand, and of course I’ll help you.”

*****

_The cabin was a lot smaller than the house he’d lived in with Jack for those few short months, but it was right for him, cause everything about him was smaller now too._

_Floyd had helped him move in. Since then, every now and then, Floyd would mention Jack’s name. Brave man, cause the first time Ennis had punched him. His nose had bloomed red like a rose. But the man kept at it, month after month, year after year, and after a while Ennis didn’t mind so much. He got hungry to hear that name from somebody else’s lips and not just his own._

_A new calendar was tacked to the kitchen wall, but he couldn’t recall the year. It didn’t matter. Most times he didn’t know the day either. Couldn’t tell this minute what day it was. What year it was. What day it was. Was ...._

_He blinked and saw he was standing in front of that calendar. That happened, sometimes, that he let himself go somewhere else and then came back to where he was living, where he was thinking of Jack. He’d think he was in a dream standing up, but it never stayed. He always came back here, staring at the time marker._

_How long had he been doing this? A long time._

_A pencil was hanging by a string. It made a strong X on the next empty square, almost without him needing to hold it, almost on its own, cause he didn’t have much energy these days except for drinking and laying in bed. The drinking made his head spin, mostly all the time, and he’d hardly had any energy at all. Couldn’t imagine how he’d got himself here even with Floyd doing most of the carrying. Best to just lay himself down again, sleep, sleep. The horse voices still came to him sometimes. The night before, they’d been hollering at him to get up, stone-Samson most of all, but he hadn’t done that._

_Long time without Jack._

*****

It wasn’t all that simple to leave, because the hospital didn’t want to let him go. He had to endure a nurse lecturing him, but about an hour later Jack was gingerly pulling himself up into Betty Jo’s truck, a red Toyota 4Runner with a white hardtop. There was no way he was going to pull the seat belt over his aching ribs, and he hoped Betty Jo didn’t make a fuss about it. He imagined if he’d been one of her kids there would have been hell to pay, but she didn’t say anything. 

Pulling out of the parking lot, going over a pothole right where they had to make the turn, stopping for red lights, it was all hard. He saw BJ gritting her teeth, because for sure she knew she was hurting him with every minute she drove. He closed his eyes against her. The nurse had practically forced a painkiller down his throat before they left, and now he was grateful to her for it and for the bottle of Darvocet tucked in his pocket. The dose would kick in soon. He clutched a frozen gel pack to his side and remembered how the nurse had said ice for the next few days would help too. 

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said without opening his eyes. 

“All right then,” she said, and he could tell her foot pressed more on the accelerator. Pretty soon they’d be out on the highway, away from the stop-and-start town traffic. It would be easier.

He smelled ripe. His clothes had been bundled in a plastic bag in the corner. His jeans hadn’t dried yet. It wasn’t much of a treat to put that old white shirt on or to pull on his undershorts from the day before. He felt damp all over, like a cloud was still misting down on him. The only good thing about the bag was that the hawk feather had been neatly tucked away.

“I should have asked, did they feed you breakfast?”

He’d opened his eyes, figured out where he was, and got himself into the hospital bathroom to piss hard-yellow, the poisons in his system flushing away. Back at the bed, he’d pressed the call button for a nurse, but when after a minute nobody had come, he’d picked up the phone and got through to the not-sorry telephone operator. He’d never come close to food.

Betty Jo drove through a Wendy’s and got herself a burger. She got two singles for Jack without even asking. He let her and didn’t even offer to pay. His wallet was a wet mess where he was sitting on it in his back pocket. He took a couple of bites of a burger and a fistful of fries, but then he couldn’t eat anymore and closed everything back up in the bag. 

“Drink, at least,” BJ told him. She handed him the Coke she’d ordered for him. 

Ten minutes later they were on route 64 angled southwest, and he was better, or maybe it was that the connection between his head and his side had been cut off by the medicine and the ice. Whichever it was, he wasn’t complaining. It set his mind free. He propped his right elbow on the door rest, cradled his left arm, and stared out at the land closing in on them. Trees were everywhere, with no sign of man except the road they were on, mountains rearing up and a sky with not a single cloud in it, the sky the only open part of the world. That took his gaze for a good long while as he thought about how it had clouded over the day before. He thought about Ennis. Him and Ennis. 

He didn’t want to have to think about them at all, the way he’d thought since 1963. He wanted to take them for granted, to have it be automatic, not something to consider, not something to carry all his wondering. He wanted to be so sure and so comfortable that there wasn’t ever any need for his memories to play though his mind -- Ennis giving him that shy smile when he saw Jack up on Jigger -- because he knew there’d be nothing but memory-making days ahead for both of them. More, more of what he’d always needed. 

And then the land changed, the pines retreated and the humps of the mountains flattened to rolling hillsides, first green with thick, cool shadows, and then the green got brown, the dirt got hard, the trees dwindled and dryness set in. Betty Jo drove on and on, closer to that hospital where Ennis was laying right now, where Jack hoped his eyes had opened, where maybe he was wanting food because he was hungry. Awake, not still and quiet. Please, awake. And ... let Ennis be all right in his head, in his thoughts, because he hadn’t laid there too long under Delilah. 

Jack just didn’t know.

Please, awake, and all right. 

The high desert around them changed again, and the truck plunged into a canyon with pines narrow and tall, reaching straight up with their fingers, too much like the one from the meadow.

What would Ennis think to wake up in a hospital? What would he feel to see Rocky there and nobody else? Or maybe not even Rocky, maybe nobody, and feeling what was maybe bad pain. 

Jack couldn’t do this anymore. Anything was better than thinking like this. He licked his sore lips. Everything was sore. “Do you have a brother?”

He turned around in the seat to look at Betty Jo more directly so as not to pay attention to the changing scenery outside. Her eyebrows, that he guessed had never been plucked a day in her life, went up. 

“A brother? Yes, I do. Ted lives in Dallas.”

“Is he gay?”

She choked. “No, he isn’t.”

“I thought maybe that might explain why you’re understanding of Ennis and me. It’s not an automatic thing, you know.”

She threw him a glance and then checked the outside mirror. “No, it isn’t that. I don’t know any other gay people, but it’s never made any sense to me to .... I try to accept people the way they are. I’m not the one who has to live in their skin. Why should I care that you and Ennis are together?”

“Most people don’t see it that way. I bet Rocky doesn’t.” 

“Rocky surely does. He’s learned. How are you feeling?”

Jack cautiously lifted a shoulder, and it didn’t pull too bad. “Okay. I figure I got off easy. This comes at a bad time for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ennis told me about Tag, how you had to put him in rehab. You’ve got troubles enough without driving me all over creation.” 

She sighed, and her expression had fallen the moment he mentioned her son’s name. “Yes, Tag. But there’s nothing we can do for him right now except stay home and think about him. They won’t even let us visit for another four weeks.”

“How’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. Rocky just took him there on Tuesday. We’re supposed to get a report a week from then.”

“I’m sorry he ran into problems.”

“We are too. I hope this will scare him so he straightens himself out.” 

From what Jack knew about such things, it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Once caught -- by the drug, by the friends, by the lifestyle -- it was hard for a young man to find another way of living. He doubted a few weeks in rehab would do the trick, but he wouldn’t say that. 

“Can I ask you something, Jack?”

“With all the help you’re giving us, Rocky staying with Ennis when I couldn’t .... I’m not likely to say no.” 

“What were you doing out with Ennis yesterday? Why were you ....” 

“I guess you think the worst of us, don’t you? That Ennis wasn’t tending to his job.”

“No, I don’t. I think very highly of Ennis,” she said, like a schoolteacher. “But it is odd, that you were there.”

He didn’t like explaining. It was his own business, but she had the right to know, he guessed. “I got out of work early, and I had some things on my mind. I took Ennis’s best horse, but I wasn’t thinking of where I was riding. I told Ennis yesterday morning how you weren’t happy with Delilah, remember when you said that at the fair? He was trying to gentle her, so Matt would stop getting thrown.”

“Oh, dear.” BJ bit her lip as she stared through the windshield. “He shouldn’t have .... I never meant ....”

“He felt bad that she was acting up. It was a matter of pride since he sold you that horse. He always said Delilah needed distance to get her attention. That’s why he went up off your land.”

“And you met him there? By chance?”

By chance. A brown-eyed boy wearing a worn jacket trying to fade into a trailer’s skin, a paper sack at his feet. A hundred, a million decisions over their whole lives had gone into Ennis being right there on that spring morning, waiting for Joe Aguirre, waiting for Jack to drive up and meet him. 

“Yeah, by chance.” Jack looked down at his fingers curled in his lap. Ennis had been the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen, the jump of attraction immediate. He’d never told him that, because it wasn’t the sort of thing Ennis had been willing to hear, words like beautiful. Good-looking had been as far as Jack had ever gone. 

Betty Jo sneezed. She sniffled and said, “I think I’m the one coming down with a cold. You’ll have to try your best not to catch it from me. You shouldn’t have come, especially if I’m going to give you all my germs.” 

“I’ve got to be there.”

“I know. I’m just being motherly and protective. Sorry, it’s a habit. Of course you want to be with him. He’s your ....” She paused and then gave an embarrassed sounding little cough. “I don’t know what the right word is.” 

“We don’t either.”

Then Betty Jo surprised him by saying, real intensely, like it meant a whole lot to her, “There should be a word.” 

He suddenly felt the painkiller in his veins trying to pull him down, or maybe it was exhaustion that wouldn’t let him go. “If there isn’t a word, then people can pretend we don’t exist, that men like me and Ennis aren’t even around. But we are around.” 

“And have been for a very long time. The ancient Greeks, Alexander. I’ve read the books by Mary Renault. Some men have wanted to be with other men from the beginning, and women with women too. I keep wondering why people act as if it’s such a surprise and something new.”

Jack had never thought of that part much, but what BJ said was so. It wasn’t just him, and Ennis, and the men he’d met and had sex with over the years, or even all the gay men in the world right now including those who’d stood against the cops at Stonewall and those who were dying of the mysterious AIDS virus, with President Reagan not saying one goddamned word about it. It was all the men who’d lived before them too, a line that led back not from father to son to father to son again, but from man to man who’d been born sharing the same difference, brothers in the way they’d been forced to live set apart. 

He shook his head. If he let his eyelids close for more than a few seconds, he’d be out like a light. “It’s not new for us. I’ve known Ennis for twenty-one years.”

She looked startled, and he remembered that, like Andy, she didn’t know them hardly at all. 

“Then how in the world do the two of you have children? Had wives and .... Jack?”

“What?”

“You’re almost asleep. That seat adjusts back. Why don’t you let it down and take a nap? I’ll wake you when we get there. It’ll be at least another hour.” 

There wasn’t much of a choice; the medicine was stronger than his will to stay awake. He fumbled for the control, found it, and gratefully laid himself back, almost like being in the recliner at home. He positioned the gel pack where it would do the most good and let the darkness come closer. 

“You and Rocky don’t have to be doing this.”

“Sure we do,” she said. “Ennis is our employee, injured on the job working for us.” She took a breath. “Besides, the two of you ... who else do you have to help you here?”

“Thanks, Betty Jo.” He heard his own voice slurring.

“You’re welcome, Jack.” 

*****

St. Vincent Hospital was an adobe look-alike that squatted on St. Michael’s Drive, almost like an Indian pueblo with add-ons that didn’t seem to have much rhyme or reason. The connection with the Catholic Church was made plain by a wood crucifix that loomed over the entranceway from the parking lot, the body of the dead Jesus picked out in such detail that Jack noticed the scrapes on his knees as they walked past. He didn’t much like that; if Jesus was expecting to hear from Jack right then, he’d have to wait until Jack found out that Ennis was doing well. 

There were only three floors to the building, he noted as they found their way to the elevators. Since Ennis had been booted out of Holy Cross because it was too small, Jack had been expecting something huge, like a big city hospital. Maybe Ennis should’ve gone farther on, to Albuquerque. He almost said that to BJ, but he felt sure she hadn’t had much control over where Ennis went, like a refugee in the night. He kept his mouth shut. Seemed like his heart was set to jump up through his throat anyway. 

Betty Jo already knew where they were going, so they didn’t stop to talk to anybody. They got on the empty elevator, waited while the doors closed, the thing moved, they passed the second floor, and finally the doors let them out on the third floor. Jack looked left and then right down stark hallways, all white walls and yellow tile, hard on the eyes, hard on folks who came here worried to death like he was. A sign said “Cardiac Care Unit,” with an arrow, and he remembered the moments up on the mountain -- the sound his fists made as they struck against Ennis’s chest, the taste of his despair, the smell of Delilah, burned -- like they’d just happened. He stopped where he was.

Betty Jo came up next to him. “Room 388,” she murmured. Everybody talked quietly in a hospital. They turned right.

But before they got to where the patient rooms started, they passed a glass-enclosed waiting room. In the open doorway two men were standing: a white-haired, white-coated man with an air of confidence that right away made Jack feel better if this was Ennis’s doctor, and Rocky. Rocky looked like hell, skin sagging on his face and marks under his eyes. Jack felt guilty about that, because he was the one who’d got to take a nap and not the man who’d been holding the fort here. Betty Jo wasted no time grabbing Jack’s arm and steering him toward the waiting room.

A person would have thought they were John Wayne with the cavalry come just in time. The look of relief on Rocky’s face would have been funny, except nothing was funny to Jack right then. “Thank God you’re here,” Rocky told his wife. “Doctor Rutherford is giving me a summary of Ennis’s condition. Doctor Rutherford, this is my wife, Betty Jo Buckminster, and this is Jack, uh ....” 

“Jack Twist,” he said without a smile or the offer of a handshake. This was the best timing he could have hoped for, to hear the truth, but he was afraid of hearing it too.

“He’s Ennis’s good friend,” Rocky said. 

“We’re all his friends,” Betty Jo said, like she was determined to make that clear, “in addition to the two of us being his employers.” 

“Uh, right,” Rocky agreed, after glancing at Jack and then, lightning-quick, away. “Please continue with what you were saying.” He took a step back and a little behind Betty Jo, one big hand going up on her shoulder. 

Like he was used to talking to women and not men, Rutherford shifted all his attention to Betty Jo. “As I was telling your husband, Mrs. Buckminster, the decision was made last night not to put Mister Del Mar into intensive care. However, we need to develop a plan of treatment for him in light of his continuing lack of consciousness. We’ve -- ”

“He’s still not awake?” Jack’s stomach clenched like he’d been punched. 

“No, I’m afraid he’s not. There have been no signs of responsiveness.”

“He ... he woke up one time last night.”

“He did?” Rutherford’s brow furrowed. “That wasn’t in the report that came in from Holy Cross. When was that? Did he speak?”

“No,” Jack admitted. “It was right after the storm came in and we got hit. Maybe twenty minutes afterward, I don’t know. But he knew me, I’m sure of that.” Or maybe he wasn’t that sure. He wanted the doctor to tell him it was so.

Rutherford pulled out the clipboard he’d been holding under his arm and made a note on a chart with a silver pen. “All right, that’s good.” He sent a severe look toward Jack. “What were you doing out in a thunderstorm? Every year we see lightning victims here at the hospital. Many of them don’t make it this far and are taken directly to the morgue.”

Beside him, Betty Jo scuffed a foot on the floor, and there was a part of Jack that didn’t appreciate being talked to that way. But he didn’t want to rile up this doctor. “Uh, it’s his job. He works on a ranch, and the storm came up over the mountains fast -- ”

“I understand. But there are more lightning strikes in northern New Mexico than anywhere else in this country except Florida.”

“I didn’t know that.” 

“I didn’t either,” Betty Jo put in.

“Anyone working outdoors should. At any rate, as I was saying, x-rays reveal no fractures, but he has suffered what appears to be a Grade Two sprained wrist, that is, with minor ligament tearing. His right -- ”

Jack winced. He’d hauled Ennis all over the hillside without even thinking.

“ -- eardrum is ruptured, his left damaged but not ruptured, but they will heal within a week or so. There is undoubtedly diminished hearing capability. We’re monitoring cardio, obviously, and respiratory patterns, but both are currently stable. We started him on an intravenous drip right away. And of course -- ”

Monitoring? Intravenous? Ennis, surrounded by machines, hooked up .... Jack’s dream, only a whisper as he’d awakened in BJ’s truck, that he’d be walking out of here with Ennis in a day or two, laughing at what had happened, faded like dreams tended to do.

“ -- of course he’s catheterized.” Rutherford looked down at his chart. “It seems certain that his right hip area is non-responsive, paralyzed because of the -- ”

“Paralyzed?” Jack croaked. He took a shaky step forward and then back. 

The doctor sent him a questioning look from over his rimless glasses. “That’s correct, although it’s difficult to make a definite diagnosis until he’s conscious. The condition is caused by nerve damage to the femoral triangle. I understand a horse fell on the patient?” 

Jack felt like he was going to throw up right then and there. He wanted to go out in their pasture and shoot every horse innocently grazing. If only he’d stood his ground, told Ennis he couldn’t do two jobs at once, the Buckminsters and his own training. Ennis, his leg ....

“Mister Twist? Are you all right?” That was Rutherford, still gazing at him like he’d never seen anybody who gave a damn about one of the patients he was discussing, as if Ennis wasn’t even a person, like it wasn’t a person’s life all changed around, a man diminished by what he was reporting, him and his chart ....

Jack managed to nod. “A horse did fall on him. Will he .... This nerve damage ....”

“As I said, it’s difficult to say how much mobility will be compromised except that damage is present. However, time and physical therapy almost always improve the condition. Beyond that, we’ll have to wait for consciousness.” 

Rutherford transferred his attention away from Jack and back to BJ. “Which brings us to the other concern, the aftermath of the lightning strike itself. There are no deep burns. These are second-degree burns, only three requiring bandaging. I believe it is safe to say that he was not directly struck by the lightning and that -- ”

“I don’t think he was,” Jack said. “The horse was. That’s why she fell on him.” 

“Indeed,” Rutherford said seriously. “That both complicates his case and gives reason for a more positive prognosis than might be made for other lightning strike victims. It is unclear whether the cardiac arrest was caused by the lightning or the blunt trauma or possibly a combination of the two.” He tapped the clipboard with his pen, looking thoughtful. 

“Whenever the heart muscle stops it’s a grave situation, with potentially grave consequences, but prompt attention leads to a significantly greater chance of overall recovery. Do you know how long Mister ... ” Rutherford looked down at the chart again, lifting his glasses a bit to see better, as if to remind himself of the name of the person he was talking about, “ ... Mister Del Mar was without a heartbeat?” 

The doctor looked from Rocky to Betty Jo and then finally allowed his gaze to settle on Jack, as if he suspected all along that’s where the answer would come from. “I presume you were the -- ” 

“It was me,” Jack said bleakly. “I was caught by the lightning too, got thrown by the blast and knocked out, but I don’t know for how long. It might’ve been thirty seconds, might’ve been ten minutes. Once I got to him, it took ....” He closed his eyes and relived the night before, feeling the lashing cold of the rain on his desperately working hands. “Maybe four minutes? Five? Could’ve been three.” Or seven, or ten. 

“Three would be excellent,” Rutherford commented, and Jack didn’t need to hear that ten was really bad.

“I did the heart thumping on his chest twice, and the breathing three times ... no, two, I think. He ... he might’ve been breathing already the second time. I mean his heart might’ve been going already, but I didn’t want to take the chance, and it was hard to hear and feel with the storm going on all around ....” He hadn’t realized he was fixed on the doctor’s polished wingtip shoes until he ran out of words. 

Betty Jo’s hand was on his arm, squeezing. “I’m sure you did the very best you could. You saved his life, Jack.” 

But what good would that do if .... 

Rutherford went on. It seemed he wouldn’t stop until every point on his list was covered. “Neurological symptoms are unpredictable with lightning strikes. They can be debilitating. We won’t be able to measure cognitive levels until he achieves consciousness, and that is the current problem. Mister Del Mar is non-responsive, and so in the absence of specific written instructions from the patient to the contrary, I am ordering coma stimulation to begin late this afternoon. If that is not successful ....” Again he looked over his glasses at all three of them. “We really do need to contact next of kin. I presume, since you are his employers, you have that information?”

Betty Jo rubbed her cheek. “Oh, dear. Well, I don’t .... It’s not like we’re a big operation. I’m not sure we ever .... It might be in my files. I suppose Rocky could look through them when he gets home today, but -- ”

“I’m no good with paperwork, you know that,” Rocky growled, his tiredness plain in every word. “Not with your filing system, anyway. How about Jack here, if anybody knows about Ennis’s daughters, he does. You’ve got their numbers, don’t you?” 

Rocky and the doctor looked at him, waiting for an answer. Betty Jo frowned up at Rocky. “I ... I’ve only talked to Junior a time or two,” Jack said, groping for the right thing to say. “I don’t call them myself, so -- ”

Impatiently, Rocky prodded. “But you two must have an address book at home. Ennis will have them written in there.”

Jack shifted from foot to foot. “I suppose we can look ....”

Rutherford raised his head, suddenly alert. “Wait one minute. ‘You two?’ Mister Buckminster, are you saying ....” He turned to Jack and arrowed his pale-eyed gaze on him. “Do you live with Mister Del Mar?”

He tried to bluster it out with this doctor who didn’t seem at all the kind that would react to bluster. “I don’t see that it’s your -- ”

“It most certainly is my business,” Rutherford said firmly, but quieter than he’d been talking before. “As his primary doctor, but most especially as the resident physician in charge of this floor, I must know the risk of communicable disease. I insure that precautions are used for any homosexual patient, so the AIDS disease is not transmitted to caregivers.”

“Doctor, I don’t think -- ” Betty Jo began, but Rocky shushed her. He looked like he’d been asked to strip naked in front of the whole church on Sunday, when it wasn’t even him being talked to at all. 

“I am sorry I must ask you,” Rutherford said, “but since it is apparent you do indeed live with the patient, I must ask you to confirm, is Mister Del Mar a homosexual?” 

Jack raised his eyes until he was looking directly at the doctor. “Doc, you just gave me a long list of all the stuff that’s wrong with Ennis. That’s enough, don’t you think?” 

“I must -- ”

“Yes, Ennis lives with me. We’re together. But don’t add that to your list, because there’s nothing wrong with it, got me?” 

“Mister Twist, I make no judgments.” 

“Oh, yeah? You and the rest of the world?” 

“It’s a medical question, in case he has -- ”

“Ennis doesn’t have AIDS,” Jack said flatly, though he didn’t know for sure, because he didn’t know if he had it, or Gary, or Randy, or any of the nameless men he’d picked up over the years since Ennis’s divorce. But ... Ennis couldn’t have it. The kind of world where they were finally together, only to have that happen to them, that couldn’t exist, could it? 

They’d talked about it exactly two times. But if Ennis had it, Jack had given it to him. 

“If there were any indication, any at all ....” Rutherford said. 

“Well, there isn’t,” Jack said. “There’s none of that. Except for all that happened to him last night, he’s been fine. He is fine.” 

Betty Jo put in, timidly, not like her, “Doctor, we’ve worked closely with Ennis for several months, and there’s been no sign ... no sick days, nothing like that. He appears to me to be completely healthy.”

Rutherford nodded. “There currently is no specific test for AIDS, but there are other blood tests that will give us some indication .... I’ll have one done. But my practice is to treat any homosexual patient with some additional precautions even with negative tests or lack of a history that might suggest infection. Any staff member with exposure to blood or body fluids must be notified to wear gloves and handle syringes and other equipment with care, to avoid accidental contamination, according to CDC guidelines.”

Betty Jo asked, “Will we need to ... I mean, can we still visit him?” 

“Certainly. There is a certain degree of hysteria in the layperson concerning the transmission of AIDS, but I do not subscribe to it, and neither do the caregivers under my direction. There is no need for gowns or masks unless you wish to request them.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Jack insisted. “He’s okay.” 

Rutherford nodded, said, “I understand,” and tucked his clipboard back under his arm. “Please obtain next of kin information as soon as you can. I need to talk to them.” Then he walked away. 

Rocky exhaled like he’d been holding his breath through all that Rutherford had said. Betty Jo murmured, “Oh, dear.” Down the hall, where the patient rooms were, somebody dropped something on the floor. It made an unholy clatter as whatever it was banged and rattled and rolled.

Jack was left feeling like he’d been slapped. He dragged his hand across his face, catching on his stubble, on the stitches in his cheek. Fucking doctor .... Jack tried to push down his rising anger. If he didn’t get to see Ennis real soon, he might explode right there in the waiting room.

“I think ....” BJ said uncertainly. “Could you ... could you call Ennis’s ex-wife? She’d know how to contact his daughters.”

Junior, Jenny, fucking Alma .... Never him. “I don’t even know her last name since she remarried. I wouldn’t know how to ask for her number from information. We’d better .... Ennis must have them written down somewhere at home, I think he’d do that. I guess .... I’m going to have to go back there with Rocky, find them -- ”

“No,” BJ said firmly. “Not now. There’s another way. We can ask Floyd to go to your house and look, can’t we? He’s at our ranch right now with Matt. Maria’s there too. I can call him.”

Jack thought it through. “He’d have to break our locks or something to get in.” 

“Are you all right with him doing that? I’ve known him all my married life. He’s trustworthy.”

“It’s fine, I trust Floyd.”

“Where should he look for the numbers? And what are Ennis’s daughters’ names? 

“Junior. Alma Junior and Jenny. I’ve got an address book, but Ennis doesn’t. Most likely the numbers are down on a piece of paper somewhere. He’s neat in most of his ways, better than me, and he wouldn’t leave something as important as his girls’ new phone numbers to chance. There’s only two places I can think of to look for them. No, three. In the nightstand on Ennis’s side of the bed, or in the -- ”

Betty Jo had pulled out a small spiral notebook from her purse and was scribbling in it. “Which side of the bed?” she asked matter-of-factly. Rocky looked up to the ceiling.

“Right side.”

“As you’re in the bed or looking at it?”

Jack tried to take too deep a breath for how his bones were situated right then, and pain stabbed him. He didn’t know which hurt more, trying to breathe in the damn rib belt or thinking of him and Ennis in their bed, Jack on the left side, Ennis on the right side, and whether he’d get the chance, ever, to lay down next to Ennis again. “Right side when you’re in it,” he said, trying not to show he was feeling anything at all. “Or in the top drawer of the dresser, right side there too. Or maybe he put something in the desk that’s in the living room, but I doubt it.” 

“Okay, nightstand, dresser, desk.” Betty Jo tucked the notebook away and said, “I’ll say good-bye to Rocky so he can get on home, and then I’ll call Floyd right away. Matt can go get him from wherever he is on the ranch. Why don’t you -- ”

Right, Rocky leaving. Jack looked up at the tall man who’d stood by his employee and his wife even though he hadn’t felt comfortable doing so. He stuck out his hand, and it didn’t seem Rocky hesitated to take it. “Thanks, Mister Buckminster, for all your help with Ennis. With me too, last night. I appreciate it.” One shake, and then Jack let him go. 

“Call me Rocky. I hope Ennis gets well fast.” 

“Me too.” 

“Jack, why don’t you go in and see Ennis now,” Betty Jo said, and Jack recognized a woman ordering things the way they should be. For once he didn’t mind. “I’ll be in shortly. Room 388.”

“I know,” he said, and he turned to go. 

Betty Jo’s voice stopped him. “You should be the one making decisions for Ennis, not his daughters. I’m sorry it can’t be like that.” 

He squared his shoulders as best he could with being strapped up, but didn’t turn back to her. “There aren’t any decisions that’ll need to be made. Ennis is strong. He’s going to be all right.” 

Room 388 was on the right side of the hall. Jack didn’t stop, he pushed the half-open door and walked in. The room was like every other he’d ever seen in a hospital, including the one he’d been in that morning. In the first bed, on his right again, a man with thinning hair combed over the top of his head was sleeping on his back, his snoring making a soft whistling sound. The mattress had been cranked up a ways to where he was propped up. He was wearing a pale-lemon pajama top with all the buttons buttoned, and a blanket had been pulled up to his chest and tucked in around him. Somebody had done that for him, though nobody was there right then. 

One of those white, privacy curtains on an overhead track had been pulled between the two beds and curled around the second one. Jack clenched his hands and walked to the unseen bed by the window, his heart thumping wildly. He got around the curtain just enough so he could see the still figure laying in the bed, and then he stopped. He put his hand out as if to hold on to something, but there was only the filmy fabric there. He took it in his fingers. The track above creaked as he leaned weight on it.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Ennis’s face. 

_You’re beautiful, you know that? Fuck good-looking. All these years, we should be an old couple still not bored with each other, but we never had those years, only weeks .... What I wouldn’t give to have married you when you were nineteen, like I told Andy. Like I married Lureen, in sickness and in health. My brown-eyed boy, all shy at the altar, promising to me in your deep, velvet voice .... We both would’ve meant it, not what we said to our wives. Don’t you dare die on me now, because I want years of you, you hear me? Look at you, all scraped up like you’ve been in a car wreck, bandage on your forehead, lips puffed up and split, red marks on your cheeks like you’re a kid who got into his mama’s make-up. Don’t you know better than that? Don’t you, my beautiful man? Open up those eyes and let me see you look at me. Open up, Ennis. I’m here. Jack’s here._

Ennis was on his back. Somebody had put a hospital gown on him, but it was mainly pushed off his shoulders and wide open down the front; it seemed he was naked from the waist up. The sheet was pulled up to his waist, and two metal safety rails, that hospital beds had, were in place. There was a white gauze dressing draped around the burn on his shoulder, the candy-cane burn, or the shepherd’s crook burn that had marked him, and then another one a little lower than that. His left hand was propped up on a small pillow and wrapped in a bandage that went from wrist to below the elbow. Behind that was a machine with a screen perched on a high table on wheels. It beeped regularly, monotonous and reassuring. On his other arm, an intravenous line was stuck in that snaked up to a bag hanging on a pole. 

Jack let go of the curtain, his life preserver in this sea of sorrow he was drifting on, and got closer, around to the window side of the bed where the light shown in on Ennis’s smooth, pale skin. So pale was the skin of his chest with the hair curling around his nipples, the skin that covered the arch of his ribs around to under his arms, where he was ticklish, though Jack rarely tickled him because Ennis didn’t like it. So pale the skin there compared to his workman’s tan, the browned arms that had seen summers of dust and backbreaking work, the arms that were strong for carrying, enduring, for wrapping around Jack and holding him.

A blue-seated wooden chair was pulled up close to the bed. Jack looked at it with sudden fury, imagining that Rocky had put it there, had maybe even sat there already. Or maybe he’d known his wife was coming, and he’d put it there for Betty Jo, because he hadn’t wanted to be seen sitting by the sick bed of another man, one he knew -- and now the doctor knew -- was one of those strange, detested, different men, the men who were receiving the scourge of God, the good folks said, as the plague swept through them because of the way they lived. 

Jack dropped into the chair, claiming it for himself. He reached through the rail across to where Ennis’s palm showed, lax. He touched it. He ran the tip of his finger all over it. The angle of where he was sitting was all wrong for holding Ennis’s hand, though. It was enough to just settle his fingers, curled, in the warmth of that palm. He searched the banged-up, bruised face, looking for some sign that he hadn’t changed inside, that the Ennis sleeping in this bed was the same Ennis who had grabbed him and kissed him the morning before, laughing. Not a man forever lost because he hadn’t breathed for too long, because Jack had slept on the mountainside and hadn’t come to him soon enough. 

But he didn’t see anything one way or the other. Here was just ... Ennis. Ennis laid down to rest after a hard day of work, Ennis taking a nap in the back room after seeing to his horses on a weekend, Ennis with his eyes closed, still there, still loving Jack .... 

_Wake up. We’ve got unfinished business. The whole rest of our lives, isn’t that what we’re in this for, what we haven’t said to each other but what we each know is the way it’s going to be? Nobody else for me but you, nobody else for you but me, because that’s the way we want it. Even though not said. You’re a fine one for not saying, Ennis, and I’m a fine one for talking and not always saying what I should. Some things I can’t say. I won’t tell you stuff that might send you away .... But you know what’s important, right? You and me .... What the hell is more important than you and me?_

He wanted to touch that stubbled cheek -- wanted to talk to Ennis, to ride with him, to make love with him again -- but he wasn’t sure if touching his face close to where he’d been scraped across rocks was a good thing. Instead, Jack stroked that hand -- callused, strong, capable -- over and over. His eyes didn’t leave Ennis’s face, so still. Sleeping, sleeping. _Wake up. Come on back to me._

After a while something made him look up. Betty Jo was standing at the foot of the bed. Jack had the feeling she’d been there a while. He watched as she stared at Ennis as if he was her own kin, with real sorrow and worry and distress, like maybe Ennis was her brother who she loved. Jack didn’t understand how she could feel that way toward somebody she sure didn’t know well, but he judged she wasn’t putting on a show.

Her eyes left Ennis and turned to Jack. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t try to smile. She looked down at where he was still touching Ennis’s hand, and Jack didn’t pull away. 

Betty Jo disappeared to the other part of the room and came back dragging another visitor’s chair behind her. She positioned it on the other side of the bed with the curtain scraping against the back, down toward Ennis’s feet. Once it was set the way she wanted it to be, she sat down in it. 

Fifteen minutes passed, marked by the big clock up on the wall, marked too by the sound of the machine measuring Ennis’s heartbeats, or maybe it was his breathing. Once, early on, BJ said, “He doesn’t look that bad. His color’s good.” 

Jack didn’t think so. 

Jack was remembering how Ennis had ridden Samson in the rodeo, how fine man and beast had looked that day, like they were one creature together, when footsteps told that somebody else had come into room 388. Jack took his hand away as a nurse came into sight. 

“Hello.” She nodded to Betty Jo and then to him. “I’m here to check on Mister Del Mar’s vital signs.” 

Jack stood up, and Betty Jo did too. The nurse, a skinny woman who looked like maybe she had strength in her wiry frame, walked up to Ennis on Jack’s side. He stepped back to give her room and watched while she did her thing. First thing was to check the IV bag. She _tsked_ and twisted a knob on it. Then she listened through her stethoscope, took a pulse, and wrote down some readings from the beeping machine. Then she put it all away and touched him with flat fingers around the edges of the three burn dressings, the last one Jack hadn’t seen before low around his waist.

“May I ask why you’re doing that?” That came from Betty Jo.

“I’m looking for infection from the burn sites. If the skin is cool, that’s a bad sign. But he’s doing fine.” Her hands moved to Ennis’s waist, on the edge of the sheet, and she looked directly at Betty Jo. “I take it you’re his wife?” 

“No,” BJ said. “I’m a good friend.” 

“Then I’ll have to ask you to leave for a minute, as I need to check the catheter.” 

“All right.” 

Betty Jo left right away, but Jack lingered. 

“You too, sir.” 

“How is he?”

“As well as can be expected.” 

“Is he in pain?” Jack gestured to the lines cutting between Ennis’s eyes.

The nurse nodded once. “Second degree burns can be painful, but that’s what the IV is for. His respiration isn’t too elevated, which is a good sign where pain is concerned.”

“Why isn’t he awake yet?”

The nurse looked at him kindly, with her fingers still curled around the edge of the sheet, the backs of her fingers touching Ennis even as he lay there, unawares. Ennis would hate being touched so, by a stranger, helpless before a woman. “Sometimes that’s the body’s way of helping to heal, or coping with the pain. And other times, when the body sustains a shock, it takes a while to recover. There’s no need for concern yet. I’m sure your friend will come back to himself soon. Now, if you don’t mind ....” She nodded toward the hallway, and Jack left. As he passed the door, he noted there was something pasted on it that hadn’t been there when he’d come in, a red triangle that said _Caution 4 for Body Fluids._

*****

Jack wished that Betty Jo wasn’t in Ennis’s room with him. It wasn’t that she talked or made a fuss; she just sat at the foot of the bed across from him. He was up by Ennis’s head, sometimes touching his hand, sometimes watching the slow inhale and exhale that he thought he’d never take for granted again. She didn’t interfere with that, but he could hardly think with her there, or feel. He was all jumbled up inside, like he’d been thrown upside down into the ocean. BJ was a nice person, was helping him and Ennis in ways he could never repay, but she wasn’t part of what him and Ennis had. He wished she would go away. 

Past two o’clock Betty Jo did get up from where she was sitting, saying, “I’ll be right back.” Jack listened to her walk toward the door and say, “Good afternoon” to somebody. It must be the man in the next bed. The next minute the TV was turned on, some soap opera with music that grated on Jack’s nerves right away. Damn. Could that be bad for Ennis? Make him not wake up or wake up later or make him worse? Jack let his gaze rest on the face that hadn’t changed since they’d got there. Ennis wouldn’t like how he was being stared at, would he? Even Jack doing it. Jack guessed the doctors wouldn’t have put Ennis in this room with somebody else if it made a difference, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Betty Jo came back from wherever she’d been, walked over to him, and handed him something cold that made him startle. 

“Let’s not forget you need this every few hours. Do you need another pill yet?”

He pressed the ice to his side and shook his head. “Not yet. I don’t think I can stay awake taking them. I’ll take Tylenol instead. The nurse said I could do that.” 

Betty Jo frowned down at him. “Will that be enough?”

“Sure. I’m just sitting here.” 

“You don’t have any Tylenol.” 

“I’ll get some later.” 

“There’s a store down in the lobby, remember? I’ll go get you some right now.”

He wouldn’t mind that, having her gone again. “Okay.” He let go of the ice pack, tucked it in under his arm instead, and reached around to get his wallet out of his pants pocket. Doing that tugged on the ribs but not too badly, something good to know.

“It’s all right, I’ll -- ”

He ignored her and got out a five dollar bill. “You can bring me the change.” 

While she was gone another nurse came in for a vital signs check; one of them was in two or three times an hour, though him and Betty Jo didn’t always have to leave. Once she was gone he couldn’t help but hear the commercials and some guy from the soap show accusing a woman of cheating on him. _You’d rather dance with Dave than me! And don’t deny you went off with him, probably to the Stardust Hotel._ With Betty Jo out of the room, it wasn’t any easier capturing his scattered thoughts as they floated around him, like they were suspended in the sea, slippery. Each time he reached out for one it escaped, washing away, maybe because he feared Betty Jo would come back, or maybe because he kept hearing the woman defending herself on TV, saying she loved Brad and only Brad. His thoughts skittered to Diego and the feedlot and then veered away. They landed on Bobby, how it’d just been last weekend that .... And then back to the TV noise again. Thoughts weren’t any good. Instead he stayed in the moment: the machine beeped. Ennis breathed. Both of them were here. 

Not thoughts, then, but memories. It was 1967, and he was in the Siesta Motel. 

_Jack ripped off his mask along with his clothes, stood there for all of two seconds naked in front of Ennis -- here I am, haven’t shown myself to a soul for four fucking years -- before they collided and down, down, down to the bed they went, that musty, creaking bed his salvation, finally able to breathe when Ennis gave him his breath._

“Jack,” Betty Jo said, because she sure had come back. The TV music was happy, drive-away-in-a-new-Chevrolet. “You look as bad as I feel.”

“I’m okay.”

“Well, I’m not. I need to go check into a motel and get some rest.”

He dragged his eyes up to her, a real effort that proved she was right. “You’re going to stay over?” 

“Until tomorrow morning. Come with me now and we can get lunch, call Floyd and get the numbers we need, and then we can get in touch with Ennis’s daughters. We’ll come back here after that.”

He didn’t like her ordering things this time but he couldn’t say no, because it all made sense, even in this slow motion, drifting world he was in. He got up, steadied himself with a hand on the mattress, right next to the pillow -- white, white, everything white -- and leaned over Ennis. He wanted to kiss his forehead but didn’t because of the bandage. Jack brushed his lips against Ennis’s hair instead. It about killed him. 

*****  



	7. The Dreamer and the Dream

A new-looking La Quinta Motor Inn, tan and pink with straggling bushes out front, wasn’t three blocks from the hospital, and they got two rooms there on the first floor. Betty Jo said, “Let’s eat in my room.” Jack carried the roast beef sandwiches they’d bought and Betty Jo carried a bag that must have her clothes and stuff in it. 

Five minutes later Jack could hear Floyd’s voice on the phone, giving Betty Jo numbers. Then he said something more, she said, “I don’t know,” and she looked over at Jack, raising her eyebrows and pointing at the phone in her hand. It took a couple of seconds for Jack to understand what she was asking, but then he shook his head. No, he didn’t want to talk to Floyd or anybody. “I think he’s pretty tired, Floyd,” she said like a diplomat into the receiver. Jack didn’t listen to anything else she had to say but concentrated on chewing and swallowing. 

Eventually she hung up and pushed a piece of paper into his hand. “You’d better call them,” she said, “unless you want me to do it. I will, if you’d rather.” 

“No,” he said, surfacing enough to face what had to be done. “I’ll take care of this right now.” He got up and gathered all the paper that had come with his food, dropped it in the wastebasket, and turned back to her. “You get some sleep. If I’m not here when you get up, I’ll be at the hospital. It’s an easy walk.” 

“No, please, wait for me.”

“I don’t -- ”

“If you can’t wait, come wake me up. I’ll set the alarm for five o’clock. Four-thirty, no later than that.”

“I ....” He couldn’t get rid of her.

“Please?” 

“Okay.”

She walked him to the door. “There’s an ice machine for your side down by the elevator.” He could hear the locks being turned behind him when he was out in the hallway. 

His room smelled like it’d been smoked in, and need for a cigarette hit him like life itself. This must be what the heroin addicts felt, he thought as he let the door slam shut behind him, when their drug was taken away. His fingers twitched, but he didn’t have anything to put between them. 

He didn’t have any luggage to be put away either. The only thing he brought with him to this room was the paper telling how to connect with Ennis’s girls, the ones Ennis loved, the ones he’d used as an excuse to Jack all those years, the ones who had rights over their daddy that Jack didn’t have. 

The phone rang four times, five, six, seven times. It was Saturday afternoon, and Junior was twenty years old. She could be anywhere, doing anything. But he had nothing else to do besides listen to the phone go on and on. He sat there and waited. The air conditioner turned on and a blast of cold air froze his shoulders. 

The fourteenth ring was interrupted. “Hello?” came the breathless question. 

He’d thought nobody would answer. “Junior?” he managed to get past his lips that didn’t want to move.

“No, this is Marla.”

Then he remembered what Ennis had told him, that Junior lived in an old, falling-down dorm hall, and the twenty-four girls on her floor shared an ancient pay phone down at one end. 

“Would you go find Alma Del Mar?”

“Sure.” He heard a voice hollering, “Alma Del Mar! It’s your father on the phone!”

Christ. Jack sat down heavily on the bed and felt pure Grade A exhaustion sweep over him. He was sinking into wet, clinging sand, feet first, and it had him caught where he didn’t have the strength to move. He put his right hand down to the bed, propping him up. The bedspread was all tans and browns and creams and a splash of orange now and then. A person could throw up on the damn thing and the mess wouldn’t be noticed. 

“Hey, Daddy.”

She sounded so happy. 

Jack cleared his throat. “Junior, this isn’t your daddy. This is Jack.” 

“Jack?”

“Jack Twist.”

“I know, I recognize your voice. Well, hi.”

“Hi.”

“Is everything okay?” Worry jumped into her voice. “What ... what’s wrong?”

There wasn’t any good way to lead up to this. “Your father is in the hospital here in Santa Fe.” 

He could imagine the fear blooming in her eyes. 

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“A horse fell on him when he was out on the job, up in the mountains behind the ranch where he works. It happened yesterday afternoon when a thunderstorm came up. Lightning hit him too.”

“Is he ... is he all right?

_All right._

_That rundown, crap motel with stains on the carpet, the walls, the sheets. Ennis had landed on top with his full weight on Jack, skin cleaving to skin connecting Jack’s belly with Ennis’s, their arms, their dicks, their thundering hearts: he could remember it, the moment sacred and perfect, like a clear sky, like blue water, like throwing himself off the highest cliff in the world and trusting Ennis to catch him._

_It had been a long, hard fall that had lasted for years. He’d thought he’d hit bottom once and damn near killed himself, but at the last second -- past the last second -- Ennis had been there._

_At long last, it had been all right._

Jack drew in breath. “No, he’s not all right. He’s unconscious. He’s not waking up the way he should.” 

“Oh, my God.” 

“The nurse says there isn’t any need to panic or anything, that this might be the time he needs to get better. I’m here at the hospital with the woman who owns the ranch where he works.” 

“Betty Jo,” she said, breathlessly. “He’s told me about her.”

“Right.” 

“What does the doctor say?”

“He’s going to try something to bring him out of it, starting today, but I don’t know what that is.” 

Junior moaned, pure frustration winging its way from the Sheridan, Wyoming cooking school down to New Mexico. “Daddy,” she said. Jack thought she was probably leaning against the wall of her dorm hallway, the phone pressed to her ear, her eyes closed. 

“It’s only been a day. He’s going to be okay,” Jack said as if he believed it. “Don’t you worry about that. Your daddy’s a strong man.” 

“I know,” she hiccupped.

“But I had to call you. And your sister next.” 

“Jenny’s not home. She’s gone off with friends on a camping trip for the weekend.” 

Jack didn’t care. Ennis loved both his girls, but it had never been any secret from Jack that Junior was his favorite, the level-headed one most like him, the one who’d rested in her daddy’s heart from the day she was born. Jenny not being around meant one less painful call to make. 

“Listen, Junior, I’ve got to ask you a favor.”

“Anything to help him.”

Jack took in one of the deep breaths that the doctor at the Holy Cross Emergency Room had told him he needed to take every once in a while, to make sure his lungs weren’t shut down by the rib belt too much, to make sure he didn’t get a breathing sickness on top of the cracked bones. It hurt like hell, breathing like that. Jack’s eyes watered, but he was glad for it. Glad.

“The doctor wants to talk to somebody related to your daddy. Now don’t get scared or anything, it’s just a formality, but he needs to talk to somebody who can make decisions.” 

There was dead silence at the other end. Junior was so like her dad, not one to say or do anything hasty. “Make decisions,” she finally said, in her slow, low voice. “Mister Twist, I might not be sophisticated, but even I know what that means.” 

“It’s only a precaution,” Jack said. “You can talk to the doctor tonight and -- ”

“I’m coming down there,” she said. 

“You can’t,” Jack said. 

“Why not? Sheridan has a good airport and I’ll -- ”

“Do you know how much money it costs to get a flight at short notice? You don’t have that kind of money.”

“My daddy needs me. I am not going to let him down.” 

_He doesn’t need you, he needs me._

That’s what Jack thought, but that was mean, wasn’t it? Ennis needed ... everybody who loved him. Jack didn’t want Junior here, he didn’t want Betty Jo here, he was glad that Rocky was gone, but that was thinking like a turtle ... or the hedgehog that Jack sometimes accused Ennis of being. 

The second deep breath he took hurt just as bad as the first, but it was something he had to do, even though he didn’t want to. “Akkk,” he said, without meaning to.

“What’s the matter? You okay?”

“Sure,” he panted. “Look, I’ll -- ”

“What hospital is he at? I need to know so I can get there and -- ”

“No. I mean .... It’s okay, he’s at Saint Vincent Hospital, but I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“You don’t have to, I can find my -- ”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“I’m sure Santa Fe has buses, a big city like that, I can -- ”

“Junior,” Jack cut her off sharply. “You are his daughter. I know we haven’t ever met, but let me do this for you, okay? And while we’re at it, I’ll pay for your plane ticket too.”

“Mister Twist, you don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t, but I’ve got the money and you don’t. And I know how to talk to travel agents to get this thing done fast. Can you come tomorrow?” 

“I can come today.” 

He looked at the clock. Three thirteen on a Saturday afternoon. “I doubt it can be done today, but we’ll see. I’ll call around for a travel agent, see what they can do, and then have them call you with the information, okay?”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“No, you won’t. Ennis ... ” It seemed somehow wrong to use his name to his daughter, and Jack stumbled over it. “ ... Ennis will be real glad to see you, because you can bet he’ll be okay by tomorrow when you get here.”

*****

_He was at a church social, though he didn’t know how he’d got there. Alma whirled by, her face alight, as she danced in Monroe’s arms. The fire and brimstone crowd were having a fine time tonight. Ennis stayed back cause he never did feel right with a bunch of people. Next to him was an open coffin like the one that Lureen had been buried in, but its white folds were empty. Up by where the three-man band was playing, a horse head was on display. The pinto. He neighed, the sound merging with the music so that it seemed nobody else heard. Ennis heard, but he ignored what the horse had to say. Some things just weren’t possible. Next to him on the wall was a fine set of antlers, but no deer attached to them._

_Ennis tore his eyes off that sight back to the dance floor, where he caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd that rocketed him out of his slouch. What? Couldn’t be ... No, of course it couldn’t be Jack. He swallowed against the sour taste that flooded his mouth, that taste of no-Jack for too long._

_“It sure is Jack Twist,” came a voice from close by._

_He turned to see who was talking, and there was goddamn Gary Shelborne. Next to him was Randall what’s-his-name, Randy Malone. Each of them was holding a plastic cup of beer and looking out at the dancers._

_“No, that ain’t Jack,” he told them, though he wanted to kill them instead of talk to them. He thought about how it would feel to punch the coach’s face into a bloody mess, and how it would be to kick fucking Malone until he couldn’t get up anymore._

_“Sure it’s him,” Shelborne said, in that big-man, big-city, smooth way he had that Ennis had felt small compared to since the night he’d laid eyes on him. “He’s a great dancer, Jack is.” He took a sip of his beer that Ennis knew was a fancy import._

_“And terrific in bed too,” Malone agreed. “One of the best lovers I’ve ever had.”_

_“He gives head better than anybody, has a mouth like a Hoover.”_

_“And the tightest ass in Texas, I swear.”_

_“Not bad topping either, knows how to make me feel good.” Shelborne thrust his hips out and pretended to jerk himself off. “I come like a gusher when I’m with Jack. Once, when we were in the Stardust Hotel, I came without even touching myself, he was that good in me.”_

_“He knows how to move it, I’ll give you that. Don’t you love the way he always announces when he’s about to come?”_

_Shelborne laughed, his dumb head bobbing. “Oh, yeah, I kid him about that all the time.”_

_“And his pet names, how he’s got a different one each time.”_

_“He calls me beanpole, mainly.”_

_“Really? I get cutie pie and angel face and sweetheart. I love it when he whispers sweetheart in my ear.”_

_“Oh, right, he does that with me too. It’s the best thing.”_

_“That’s Jack for you,” Malone said, shaking his head fondly._

_Ennis finally got his feet unstuck and went in front of them. He got right up in their faces. “You two assholes don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_“Of course we do,” they each said at the same time, as reasonable as could be, showing no fear. They should be afraid of him, though._

_“It’s the truth,” the coach insisted, smiling. “As true as the fact that it’s Jack out there now, dancing with Brad.”_

_Ennis looked over his shoulder but only saw blurred colors, everybody moving. He didn’t know about any Brad, did he? How could he keep track of all Jack’s lovers?_

_Old lovers, old ones, not for now, cause Jack loved Ennis, only Ennis. Not Brad._

_“Not the damn coach either,” Ennis growled. He turned back to where Shelborne and Malone had their arms around each other, their lips connected and their eyes closed. “Not good-time fancypants from Childress.” He grabbed them by their hair and shoved them together into Lureen’s empty coffin, and then he slammed the top down on them._

_“Jack!” he hollered as loudly as he could. “Jack!” Ennis ran into the crowd of all those people, bumping into them, tripping over his own feet, but desperately checking out all their faces, needing that one. “Where’d you go? Where are you?” He knew it couldn’t be. This was just a dream. He would wake up in front of his endless calendar without the part of him he’d lost, but if there was a chance, even the smallest chance Jack was really here ...._

_“Jack!”_

_“Jack!”_

_“Jack!”_

***** 

Betty Jo had to bang on his door and call his name in order to wake him at four-forty-five, because after he’d made sure that Junior would get in touch with her mom, and after he’d found a travel agent to take care of things -- in a small miracle, Great Lakes Airways flew directly from Sheridan to Santa Fe every day -- he’d fallen into sleep more surely than a stone thrown into a stream settled to the bottom. Jack was crazy for the first few seconds after waking up, not knowing where he was and fighting mad about something. Then it all crashed in on him, and he wished it hadn’t. The sleep hadn’t done him any good, not with dark, tangled dreams. Groaning because he was so stiff, he got himself up.

Somehow he’d expected the hospital to be different in late afternoon, but it wasn’t. Oh, sure, the parking lot was almost full now. The elevator was crowded, and the third floor had more nurses and aides scurrying back and forth in the hallways. The man in the bed next to Ennis -- “Hi, I’m George Jackson” -- was sitting up eating dinner. He explained that he was recovering from a heart attack and expected to go home the next day. 

But once past that white curtain that was still drawn around Ennis’s bed, those differences faded into sameness, because Ennis wasn’t changed. Jack went up to him and looked down. He could see the spider threads of veins running under his eyelids. Jack put his good-side arm next to the pillow, leaned down on it and kissed his hair again. He stayed there a second, trying to breathe in Ennis, but Ennis wasn’t there, only the hospital antiseptic smell. Jack sighed, pulled back, and put the hawk feather that he’d brought with him this time, from BJ’s truck, on the bedstand. Then he went around to his chair by the window and settled into it with care, favoring his side. Betty Jo took up her station on the other side, and it was as if they hadn’t left at all. 

Still breathing, though. Up, down, in, out. 

The bustle and clatter of getting all the patients fed filled Jack’s ears until well after six o’clock, as well as the nightly news that George watched on the TV, that he wanted to holler about, to tell George he could damn well turn the noise of the world off, didn’t he know there was a sick man in this room? But he didn’t, not even when some dumb game show, it might’ve been _Family Feud,_ came on after the news. 

Jack couldn’t do anything about turning off his ears, but he could keep his eyes on Ennis, and he did. He didn’t say anything out loud, but inside it seemed words were growing, like a geyser flowing through the ground up toward where people lived, ready to explode into the air. _Ennis. Ennis. Are you there? Holy God in heaven, let him be there and not gone. Ennis? Ennis?_

Over and over again, just that, because none of the rest of what was inside him could come out in this crowded room. But those few words, they were there. Jack didn’t even know somebody else was with them until she was standing at the foot of the bed and said, “Hello, I’m Sandra Westheimer, Mister Del Mar’s physical therapist.”

Jack stood up, feeling the strain of tensely sitting in one place, he hardly knew for how long, and wondering what the hell a physical therapist could do. He shook Sandra’s hand, said his name, and then she turned to Betty Jo and said, “Mrs. Del Mar, I’m so sorry your husband had this accident, but I’m sure -- ”

“Oh, I’m not his wife,” Betty Jo was quick to say. “Just a friend.”

“Oh,” Sandra said. “Is Mrs. Del Mar here, or will she be arriving -- ”

“There isn’t any Mrs. Del Mar,” Jack said, frowning. “It’s just us, Betty Jo and me.”

“Ennis’s daughter will be here tomorrow,” BJ added.

“That’s fine,” Sandra nodded. She was a middle-aged lady who weighed way more than she should have for working in the healthcare field; if Betty Jo was built like a cut-off barrel, then Sandra was a Sherman tank, with breasts that jutted out like twin guns, pure steel. The patterned cotton shirt she wore strained across them and hitched up at her waist. “I’m asking because I’ll be teaching anyone who’ll be here for a while some of what I’ll be doing over the next few days. That way they can assist in bringing Mister Del Mar back to consciousness. But we’ll do the teaching tomorrow.” 

Jack cast a quick look down at Ennis because he didn’t want to let his hope show. “He hasn’t moved since we got here, since lunchtime.” 

“I’ll see if I can change that with the coma stim.” She pulled up one of those high hospital tables on wheels, and when she’d got it positioned by the monitor, she set the case she’d been carrying on it. As she pulled out what was inside -- little bottles and some notebooks, mainly -- she explained over her shoulder. 

“Either another therapist or I will be doing this several times a day, though tonight we’ll have only this one session. I’ll be trying to stimulate the oldest part of the brain, the primitive brain, by using our most basic sense. We need to rev things up by getting Mister Del Mar’s Reticular Activating system going again, by exposing him to strong, familiar smells.” She held up one of the little bottles with her left hand while she wrote something down with her right. “For instance, coffee grounds.” She looked at each of them in turn. “Do you know if Mister Del Mar drinks coffee?” 

“Like a fish,” Jack said. They were finally doing something, and he could help. “The store brand mostly, unless Maxwell House is on sale.”

“That’s fine, though we aren’t quite that specific. Can you tell me what profession he’s in? The form isn’t completely filled out, so I didn’t know exactly what to bring with me. That’s why I have the complete kit.” 

“He’s a foreman on my horse ranch,” Betty Jo told her. “Mine and my husband’s.”

“Excellent,” Sandra said as she picked more bottles from her case. “We keep a complete stock of ranch, farm, and general animal smells. Does he drink alcohol?”

“Whiskey,” Jack said. “And beer. Corona and Bud. Corona with a lime, he likes limes. Maybe you have that?”

“Sorry, no limes, though I do have orange and apple smells. And lemon.”

“I’ve seen him eat apples for lunch all the time at the ranch,” BJ said. 

“He only eats oranges at home,” Jack told her. “Says they’re too messy to eat anywhere else.”

Sandra gave him a long look. He could see the question in her eyes, and his heart sank. Then he was mad that he was worried, because it shouldn’t make a fucking difference to anybody, right? She turned back to her case, pulled out a manila folder, and opened it to a page with lots of typing on it. Her finger ran down the sheet, and then it got stuck on a line halfway down, that she read more than once. 

“All right.” Sandra drew out the words as she put the folder away again. The case closed with a snap. “I understand now why there isn’t a Mrs. Del Mar. Sorry if I said anything inappropriate before. Now, during coma stimulation, we can’t be stimulating any other senses, just smell. That means I’ll need a completely darkened room, no TV, the door closed, the other patient asked to be silent, and I’ll be asking the two of you to leave for about half an hour. After the stim I’ll be doing range of motion exercises. I’ll exercise his joints, and that will help all sorts of things like muscles, blood circulation, and most especially his nerve fibers. I’m on duty tomorrow afternoon. If the two of you will be here then, I’ll teach you what you’ll need to know to help, unless Mister Del Mar is already conscious by then. Any questions?”

Jack knew the nervous talking was to cover up how she felt about him and Ennis, but he didn’t care. It sounded like this was a plan she had, a good plan, started by Doctor Rutherford, and there wasn’t anything he wanted to say to delay it. 

“I won’t be here tomorrow,” Betty Jo said. She turned to Jack with an apology. “I’m sorry, I need to get back to Davey. He doesn’t do as well with other people as he does with me.” 

“It’s okay. You and Rocky have already done -- ”

She waved her hand and shushed him. “For friends, right? Miss Westheimer, Mister Twist will be here tomorrow.” 

“Right, I will be. You can teach me then.”

Sandra smiled at him as artificially as the overhead lights. “Good. Then if you’ll give me at least thirty minutes now, maybe forty? The hospital has a fair cafeteria if you’re hungry.” 

“That sounds good,” Betty Jo said. “Come on, Jack, we may as well get dinner.” 

“But what if he wakes up while we’re gone?” Jack didn’t move. “I want to be here when -- ”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Sandra told him. “Only in the movies. The process of coming back to consciousness is almost always gradual. This is only the beginning. We’ll have signs that will tell us he’s starting to come back.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

“The cafeteria’s chicken enchiladas are usually pretty good,” Sandra told them, and she walked behind them and closed the door once they were out in the hall. 

Jack stood there and stared at the red triangle on the door. He stuffed his right hand into his pocket and wished he could do the same with his left. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t thirsty, and what he wanted to do was stay like a fly on the wall inside that room. The urge to look over the PT’s shoulder was a big one, though he knew it was nuts to think she was up to anything no good or that she would hurt Ennis in any way. She wouldn’t. She was doing her job, trying to help, that’s all. And when they got back, she might have good news. Standing here wasn’t doing anything worthwhile. 

“Jack? Are you coming?”

He followed Betty Jo and her big brown purse to the elevator and down to the first floor, where they followed signs that took them across the carpeted lobby and to the far wing of Saint Vincent’s, out near the parking lot. They walked past the Day Surgery, and the Imaging Lab, and the Radiology Department, all behind closed doors for now. Pretty soon the smell of something good hit Jack’s nose, but it didn’t make him hungry. 

Betty Jo, about six feet in front of him, stopped abruptly. She looked at another one of the many doors they’d passed, but this one was edged in dark stone, with a free-standing sign on a pole out in front of it. Then she said to Jack as he came up to her, “Would you like to .... Maybe we could stop here, if you’d like.” 

The sign said _Non-Denominational chapel. Everyone welcome. For counseling services dial 7729._

He’d been praying deep inside, he knew that, some mainly wordless howl that screamed from the depths of his bones, that demanded, pleaded, and threatened. He couldn’t help that. But this ... But this was someplace official, visited by do-gooders, and Andy’s pastor, and Corliss, set up to honor the God who didn’t honor him and Ennis, no way. What was he supposed to do, get down on his knees and apologize for being the exact way he’d been made from the beginning, confess to leading a deviant lifestyle, and then ask the God that had done it to him to bring Ennis back so they could keep on living that life together? Those were the kind of prayers that fit this place. What kind of sense did that make? 

It was hard to work his throat so sounds would come out of his mouth. Roughly, he said, “I don’t need that. I don’t believe in their God.” He took a few steps closer to the cafeteria, then stopped and said, “But if you want to, you go ahead. I’ll wait for you in here.”

Betty Jo looked at the chapel door and shook her head. “No. All the God I need is right here.” She touched over her heart. “Let’s go.” 

*****

A different nurse came in a little after eight o’clock to take Ennis’s vital signs, and she told them that visiting hours would be over at nine. When she let them back into the room, that was when Jack started dividing his time between resting his sight on Ennis and glaring at the clock. It was positioned on the wall serving both patients, and it moved too quickly. There were just forty-two minutes left -- _click_ \-- no, forty-one minutes left. 

It hardly seemed he’d been in this room at all, even though at the same time it felt like a hundred years. He hadn’t looked enough, he hadn’t thought enough, he hadn’t hoped enough. He hadn’t forced things to work the way they should work by being here, by needing it badly enough. Ennis was supposed to have his eyes open by now, right? And somehow Jack hadn’t thought past this day. He hadn’t considered how he’d have to spend the night in that motel room and not pass those hours where he was right now. He hadn’t thought on the practical problem of no clean clothes, not even a toothbrush. And no truck. He hadn’t figured yet how he was going to fill that promise he’d made to Junior of picking her up at the airport. Junior. 

Jack bit on the edge of his thumbnail, brooding over the fact that Betty Jo would finally be gone only for Junior to take her place, and then he jerked his hand away from his mouth when he realized that was something Ennis did. 

“He never talks about you.” 

Betty Jo had talked hardly at all to him, or him to her, as they sat in this room all these hours. It was a shock to hear her quiet voice now over the sound of the TV. Jack looked at a fold of the sheet as it brushed against Ennis’s thigh. “No?”

“No.”

“He’s quiet.”

“Yes. Do you mind if I ask .... How did you two meet?” 

Jack looked over at her. The fluorescent lights weren’t kind to Betty Jo, or maybe it was the long day and the longer night before it. Her skin was blotched here and there, and her nose was shining in a way that would’ve had Lureen reaching for her powder. But Betty Jo wasn’t wearing make-up, mascara, or any of that stuff. Her eyes sort of disappeared in her round face, and they were red-rimmed like that was her normal way of looking. 

Ennis wouldn’t like it if he was to talk to Betty Jo. He was quiet for reasons made up of shame and fear and distrust and just being Ennis. 

“I wasn’t sure,” Betty Jo said, “what kind of relationship you two had.” She shrugged. “There are plenty of men and women our age who are married and have settled into complacent agreements, without much passion left. If there was any passion to begin with. You haven’t acted like you’re complacent.” 

“No,” Jack said. His voice sounded like it came from far away even to him, as if that part of him was talking from back in Eagle Nest.

“And then I wasn’t sure if you’d want to come here today. Act this ... this role that we’ve been put into, waiting at the bedside.”

Jack sat back in the chair that never would fit him. “Everybody who comes in here thinks you’re his wife.”

“That’s so.”

“But once they figure out the truth, they don’t treat me like ... anything. I’m just a person in the room.”

“No you’re not.”

“Nobody here can deal with me and Ennis.” He got to his feet and turned around in the small space between the bed and the window. Eight-thirty, nighttime. He looked down at the pebbled roof of the first floor wing, where he’d eaten meatloaf and mashed potatoes and string beans with Betty Jo, where she’d pushed him to eat some pumpkin pie. The rooftop was dotted with pipes that glinted in the light pouring in from the parking lot; some steam escaped from one of them. Jack wondered what the hospital did with things like appendixes and amputated legs. Where’d it all go?

“How did you and Rocky meet?” he asked of the window. He wanted to turn around and check on Ennis again; this was the first time since he’d got to this room that he hadn’t had attention focused on Ennis for anything more than a few seconds here and there. Something childish in him wanted to believe that if he waited long enough, when he turned around ....

“We met at a horse show in Ruidoso. I was helping my father, and Rocky was there with his great uncle, who used to own our ranch. Uncle Farley died and gave it all to us. That’s how we have it.”

“So you two lived in different towns?”

“Not for long. I was twenty-five, thinking I’d never find anybody, and I fell in love with him right away. On the first date.” 

Jack fingered the edge of the curtain. “Ennis says you and Rocky seem to really love each other.” Clear as could be, he heard Ennis say, _They’re like two lovebirds._

Behind him, Betty Jo cleared her throat. “Yes, we do. I don’t know how I’d live without him, he’s so much a part of me. How many other men would put up with ... well, with me? I’m different, and difficult, in a lot of ways. And Davey .... A Downs child is a challenge that has destroyed many marriages. But Rocky is a wonderful father.” She paused. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to meet Ennis’s daughter. The few times he’s mentioned his children, he’s ... gone soft.”

Jack lifted his head, blinked against the glare outside, and swallowed. Behind him, Ennis breathed. 

“He loves his girls.” 

“Jack ... the nurses, the physical therapist, even the doctor didn’t seem unduly concerned. Ennis is going to wake up soon. He’ll be fine.”

He hated, hated hearing her say that. He didn’t want the reassurance, he wanted the reality of it. 

“I don’t know how long I was out,” Jack gritted out. “Whether he’s fine or not depends on that, doesn’t it? The lightning threw me a ways, knocked me out, and even when I came to, it took me a while before I realized ....” He shook his head as despair washed over him. “We’re talking minutes that could make the difference. I keep asking myself if the storm was still strong, so maybe I was unconscious a minute or less, or if it had gone past the worst, the way storms do, so maybe I was out ... a lot longer.” 

“You said maybe it took you three minutes to get him breathing again.”

Jack hunched both shoulders even though it sent fire down his left side. “Sitting here tonight, I’ve got myself convinced it was one. Thirty seconds of me laying like a baby on the slope, then thirty seconds to get over to him, a minute to get him out from under the horse and turned onto his back, and then a minute .... That’s three minutes all together.”

“That’s not too long. He won’t have taken any harm from that.”

How could she say those things, believe in them, or talk to him like he was one of her sons? He wanted what she said. But having it happen would be too easy, in their lives where nothing had ever been easy. His life, where nothing had ever come to his hand. Dear fucking God in heaven. He rubbed at his face. He didn’t want to pray, he wanted answers! He didn’t want seven months, he wanted ....

“What date is it?” he asked.

“Date?” He heard a rustle behind him, Betty Jo pulling out one of those little calendars that it seemed all women carried. “It’s the 29th. Saturday, September 29th.” 

Never enough time. “We met when we were nineteen, one summer when we herded sheep together. But we ... we couldn’t make it work.” Didn’t even try to make it work, couldn’t imagine for four endless years how it could work. “But we couldn’t get quit of each other either, even when we got wives and had children. I know what you mean about Rocky being part of you. How do you tear out part of yourself? I couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it.” Jack choked, remembering the endless waves of desire and regret, the threat of love turned angry because it was denied so long. “But then ....” He fought back the tears, hated them, hated his weakness for talking to Betty Jo, but who else the fuck was there? Just her and him, here for Ennis. “But then we got things changed.” Somehow it changed. “We moved in together, first time ever, on February 28 of this year. Seven months ago. And one day.” 

_Hear me, God? Whoever the hell is listening. It’s not enough! You owe me! You fucking owe me!_

Betty Jo got up and moved close. Her hand was warm on his shoulder and then slid down his arm where she gripped his wrist. Her other arm went around him from behind; she was pressed against him in an awkward hug. “Oh, Jack. I didn’t know. I didn’t -- ”

“Let me go,” he whispered, even as he fought the urge to turn around and bawl like a baby against her. 

“What?” 

He wiped his eyes and came away with tears on his hand. “Let me go. Suppose he wakes up now and sees us like this? Ennis wouldn’t understand.” 

She gave him a little shake. “Surely he would. You’re under tremendous stress, hurt yourself, all this going on at the hospital .... There’s nothing wrong with -- ”

“Betty Jo? Would you do me a favor? Besides all the hundreds of favors you and Rocky have done already?”

“You know I will if I can.”

“Just ... leave.”

“What?”

Now he did turn around, got his hands on her shoulders, and held her away from him. Her eyes were confused, looking at him. “I need to be alone with him. Junior will be here tomorrow, you’ve been here all day today with me, and don’t think I haven’t appreciated it, I have. But I need some time alone with Ennis. Okay?”

Instant regret spread over her face, and she bit her lip. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, only -- ”

“I hadn’t realized I was doing that to you.” She backed out of his grasp and pulled on her shirt for no good reason. “Of course I’ll go. It’s another example of what Rocky calls my micro-managing. I have good intentions, but .... I lose perspective. I’m sorry.” 

“No, don’t be. It’s okay.”

She gave him a swift smile, went to her purse, dug around in it, and held out her keys. “Here, you take the truck to drive back to the motel. Do you feel well enough to do that? It seems to me that you’re moving easily enough for that.” 

“I’m not going to take your truck.”

“Please, it’s a short walk, the air will do me good.”

It was all he could do not to shout at her to take her fucking goodwill and kindness with her and just leave. A man could only take so much mothering. “Betty Jo, I’m the one who’s going to take that walk, not you.” 

Her hand closed on the keys as they dangled in mid-air, and this time he’d ruffled her feelings, he could tell. 

“All right.” 

“Fine.” He gathered up what was left of his composure. “You ... sleep good. I’ll see you at the motel in the morning, okay?”

“Okay. If you need me for any reason, feel free to call my room. And don’t forget to take your pill.” 

“I won’t.” 

He stepped to the foot of the bed and watched her leave, guilt and relief mixed up in his gut. Through the door to the hall he saw a nurse go by, the same one who’d told them when visiting hours would end. She glanced in at him standing there, stopped, frowned, and looked at her watch. 

Fuck her and all those other nurses, in and out all the time, never giving him peace with his man. With angry strides he got over to the doorway quickly, kicked the door-prop up, and shoved the door closed. He turned around to go back to Ennis and felt as if he was being looked at as he passed by where George was watching the Yankees lose big to the Tigers on the next-to-last day of the baseball season. The dividing curtain hadn’t once been pulled back today, but with Betty Jo and him coming and going, it wasn’t extended as far as it might be to separate the two halves of the room. Jack tugged it full out until it arched around Ennis’s bed like the protecting curve of a huge white palm.

And then, finally, he looked at Ennis. Of course there wasn’t any change. His face was as still as the surface of a lake on a summer morning, when a man could see his own reflection if he bent down close enough. 

Behind him, the announcer said the score was the Yankees one, the Tigers six in the middle of the seventh inning. Ennis’s team ....

What was he doing here? Was this real? He’d talked with Ennis once or twice about visiting Santa Fe. Jack had thought maybe they could go in the winter when Ennis wouldn’t be able to work nearly as much with the horses as he’d been doing. But ... Saint Vincent Hospital? Ennis hurt? Jack’s life trembling on the edge of everything and nothing? This had to be a bad dream. 

With his feet dragging against the floor, he made his way around the bed to his chair. Before he sat, he considered the cushion, knowing in a flash that a lot of people had sat in it before he had and that it told all sorts of stories, some joyful and some dreadful. Taking that seat was re-enacting a scene that this chair, this room had seen before, because hospitals were places where lives changed. 

Hospitals. And mountains. And showers in Childress, and small forests. And dusty lots outside old trailers. 

Jack sat down and pulled the chair as close as he could get it. His knees bumped against the mattress. Without Betty Jo on watch, he reached between the rungs of the protecting bar and pulled Ennis’s carefully placed hand away from where the nurses and the PT had wanted it to be. He twined their fingers together, holding hands the way Ennis had not often allowed, though once or twice it had happened. 

For a long time Jack sat there like that, his eyes on a constant search across that still face, the bare chest. Finally, some of the words that had been building up in him all day came out.

“Ennis, it’s Jack. Are you there? I know you are. What’re you thinking in there?”

His voice was a whisper. The TV masked it, for sure George couldn’t hear, and maybe Ennis couldn’t hear either. But what about that connection he’d thought about this morning, the one that would always tell him how Ennis was no matter how far apart they were? He’d thought then of distant places, but maybe here was the farthest apart they’d ever be on this earth, right next to each other, touching.

“We’ve got Junior coming in tomorrow. She’s worried sick about you. It’d be good if you woke up to see her and show her you’re okay. Do you hear me? Sweetheart, hear me?” 

Maybe Ennis’s ears weren’t healed enough, though the doctor had said there should be some hearing going on. Without thinking about it, Jack lifted up and pressed a kiss on Ennis’s fingers, letting his lips linger, wanting to make sure Ennis felt him doing that. _I’m here! It’s me, I’m here!_ Jack’s sorrow and his longing rose up like a tidal wave ready to rush over him. He _wanted_ so bad .... But he pushed his feelings back down. Not here, not now. Ennis had always been the most private of men. He wouldn’t like a whispered _sweetheart,_ probably not even in their own shared bed. 

Sniffling some, Jack kissed again, and then he settled back down, searching ....

“You always called me a dreamer, remember when you used to say that to me like the worst curse? I haven’t changed, Ennis, because I still have dreams. None of them amount to anything without you. I never did tell you ....” 

_About this dream I have of you and me ten years from now, how we’re settled with each other, and every day’s good. You’re fucking happy and content. You smile at me all the time, the kind of smile that reaches your eyes._

_And I never told you about how some day I want to take you to a gay bar. Not Rosie’s in San Antonio. Someplace calmer, to get you comfortable with other men like us and show you how they’re the same and they’re different, but even so we’ve got plenty of company. All those years in your shack, you thought you were alone, but you weren’t._

_And, yeah, I want to dance with you, but that won’t ever happen, so I let that one go._

_And I never told you about this plan I’ve been thinking about, that we could start to rent out the equipment I got for free from the fair. We could make a good sum off that, if you can stand having people come out to our place to get it._

He rubbed his thumb against dry skin. A bruise had come up on the back of Ennis’s hand, and he was careful not to press on it, for fear of hurting.

_And you don’t know how I’ve been thinking of watching the baseball playoffs with you, our first time together, in our back room. We’d get beers and chips, put our feet up .... All those World Series games we didn’t see together. I’ve been wanting awful bad to see a Series with you. Not anybody else, just you and me in our own house. I watched plenty of the games with Bobby, sure, and the way he is now, you’ve got to know he isn’t on my list of favorite people right now. But you know what? I can deal with that if I’ve got you._

_And you don’t know how ... when I say you’re the light of my life? Remember how I say that sometimes? I mean it, Ennis._

“I mean it,” Jack whispered. “Come on back. I need you.” 

*****

Jack got out of bed early on Sunday morning like an old man hurting everywhere, but with two thoughts blazing in his mind. Ennis was going to wake up today for sure, and Jack needed to get his own truck to Santa Fe. He felt like his mind was clear, as if a fog that had laid over his thoughts was finally gone. The Darvocet from the hospital had stayed in the bottle the night before, and he guessed that’s why. Though he’d popped Tylenol every time the pain had woken him up.

It took half an hour to rouse Betty Jo and convince her to give him a lift home with her, not later but right now, because he had to be back in time to get Junior. They left the La Quinta at seven-thirty on the dot, and two hours and fifteen minutes later the 4Runner pulled into the drive off County Road 19. They’d eaten donuts and drank coffee together on the road, Jack had let her push ice from the motel ice machine on him, and he’d sat up straight the whole way. She drove away with a smile because the trip had been easy. They knew how to do the two-friends-of-Ennis thing for sure now. He’d thanked her as best he knew how. She told him to call on her and Rocky for any help he needed and keep them informed. 

Once in his own house he wasted no time stripping all his clothes off -- he left them in a heap in the kitchen -- and easing into the shower, carefully, with one foot in, then the next, because if he fell with his side the way it was, he didn’t know if he’d get up. He soaped up just as carefully. Jesus, he smelled like a homeless man. But he wasn’t homeless, because Ennis was going to wake up today. Shaving around his stitches and finding a way to pull on clean jeans and a button-down green shirt, one he could use for work, not the raggedy one he’d been wearing three days straight, made a world of difference. He felt human again. He felt hopeful.

But he also had to face some facts. Only the doctor knew how long Ennis would be stuck in the hospital; Jack might be living from the La Quinta Inn for a while. He hauled out the suitcase he’d been using for his trips -- Kansas City, San Antonio -- and stuffed it full of more clothes. Then, with his mouth set, he dug deeper into the closet, finally finding what he wanted. He pulled out the cloth bag that Ennis had used that time in Fort Worth. Inside went seven sets of Ennis’s undershorts and all three of his white t-shirts, the only ones Jack could find, though he looked for more. Years ago, Lureen had gone a little crazy and got Jack two sets of pajamas, maybe thinking he was going to have slumber parties with their men friends from Childress, though Jack did wear the pants now and then in the winter. Into the bag he stuffed them all, because Ennis would blow a gasket when he saw he was in one of those hospital gowns. 

Ennis’s best jeans and his favorite long-sleeved white shirt, for when he came home, they wouldn’t fit in that bag, so Jack pulled out some of his stuff and made sure they found a place in his suitcase. 

He detoured to the kitchen to down three Tylenol, and that’s where he saw the note from Floyd on the table. _Tell Ennis not to worry I’ll take care of the horses while you’re gone. Call me if I can help any other way. My number is 555-4357. Don’t worry about the lock I fixed it. Floyd_

He hadn’t even thought about the horses, or Jigger. Where the hell was that horse? Well, there were some things he could do something about and other things he couldn’t, and he was dead set on concentrating on getting something done today. He stuffed the note into his back pocket and made a quick trip to the bathroom for Ennis’s razor and all that other stuff. Into the bags they went.

One last thing to do: he picked up the kitchen phone. The hospital answered on the first ring, and a few breaths later he was talking to a person who said she was head nurse for the third floor. 

He figured she didn’t really believe that he was Ennis’s brother called from Texas, but she pretended like he was doing, or maybe it was because it was Sunday morning. She might have heard the fear and hope in his voice. Anyway, she didn’t give him any trouble and said that there’d been no change in the patient’s condition. No worse? he asked. No worse, she said. And then she said that she understood Mister Del Mar’s daughter was flying in today, and maybe he could call her later to get a more complete update. 

He dragged what he’d packed outside to the truck, along with Ennis’s birthday-boots and socks, and heaved them up into the truck bed with gritted teeth. There. Now he was ready. His ribs hurt but he didn’t care. Santa Fe, Ennis, Junior, therapist Sandra with her bottles full of possibilities, and Doctor Rutherford with the bad attitude but the good ideas: watch out, because here he came. He slid behind the wheel, and it was the best thing to turn the key in the ignition and head the reliable Ford down toward the road. He was on his own now, not depending on the Buckminster family or anybody else. 

He made it to the Santa Fe Municipal Airport and parked in their two level parking garage five minutes before the plane from Sheridan was due at one o’clock. He had to walk fast to the terminal. By that time he was clutching his side and wishing he had ice, because his body was saying a four hour and thirty minute round trip drive after being hit by lightning two days before maybe hadn’t been the best idea in the world. But that wasn’t going to stop him, not on this day.

When Jack got to the gate, panting a little, some man was announcing that Great Lakes Airways flight number 27 from Sheridan, Wyoming had arrived. He watched while the first few people came through the arrivals door. He’d just made it. The hospital would have already served lunch, though Ennis wasn’t eating. But maybe he was, maybe. Jack tapped his foot as more people came out, none of them young women traveling alone. _Come on, Junior, we’ve got to get going._

Junior was the last passenger through the door. A jolt went through Jack to see her in person, almost like it was indecent to behold this young woman who meant so much to Ennis ...or maybe that it was indecent for her to behold him. He stood up as straight as he could. Her long hair was tied back with a black clip, and she looked like maybe she hadn’t had much sleep. They saw each other at pretty much the same time, and Jack read the same holding-back in her that he felt. But they were after the same thing, he reminded himself.

He took a step forward. “Junior?”

“Mister Twist?”

What did a person do in such a situation? He put out his hand, but instead of taking it for a shake, Junior handed him her carry-on bag. Well, okay. 

“Do we need to go get more baggage?”

“No, I just carried what I needed.” Her voice was rich, like a movie star’s, like Marlene Dietrich’s, and it was strange hearing it not just through the phone but watching her lips form the words. “How’s Daddy?”

“Last I heard, the same.”

A frown showed on that pretty face, that, though he searched it, didn’t seem to have a trace of her father in it. 

“What do you mean, the last you heard?”

“I haven’t seen him today yet.” He started walking toward the truck, and she followed. 

“You haven’t? Why not?”

He saw her check her watch and figure up the hours, saw some sort of judgment being formed that caused a flash of resentment to rise up in him. She didn’t know how he’d .... But anything he might’ve said to justify himself -- _it’s not that I don’t love your dad more than I used to think it was possible to love anybody, but I had to set things up for the long haul, because I’m not leaving him ...._ That didn’t need to be said. 

“Just the way it worked out. I had to get some things done. Here, this way.”

He went to open the door to outside, to hold it for her, but the wind whooshed against the glass, making it hard for him to move it. He had to put his shoulder to it and grunted with the effort. 

Outside the air-conditioned terminal, as they walked along the concrete, Junior said, “It’s a lot warmer here.”

“I guess so. New Mexico is a lot farther south than Wyoming.” 

“It was thirty-eight degrees in Sheridan when I left.” She undid the green scarf that she’d wound around her neck and unbuttoned her jacket.

He’d parked close. Instead of tossing her bag into the truck bed, he handed it up to her once she was seated. He was learning what hurt the most when he moved and what didn’t. 

She said, “We’re going straight to the hospital, right?” before he paid the garage fee, and then she wanted to know how far it was to Saint Vincent’s. He told her about twenty minutes, and that seemed to satisfy her. 

She waited until they’d taken the ramp to Interstate 25 and had the truck at highway speed before she said, “You didn’t tell me much yesterday on the phone. I’m thinking there’s more to this than I know.” Junior’s voice was even, throaty. She was looking out the window as she talked, not at him. “You want to tell me?”

He’d already figured this out on the drive back to Santa Fe. There wasn’t any need for her to worry about whether her daddy had ...had taken any hurt from how long it had taken Jack to get to him. Jack could carry that himself. 

“Once he wakes up, he might not be able to hear us real good right away. The lightning busted one of his eardrums and hurt the other one, and they need some time to heal. He’s got some burns,” he steered with his left hand and touched his shoulder with his right, “that they’ve got bandaged. I’m not sure how bad they are or how much they’ll be paining him. They could’ve been a lot worse, I know that.”

An oil tanker blasted by them, driving way too fast for an early Sunday afternoon, with the church-goers going home from their after-service lunches. 

“Anything else?”

“His hip,” Jack allowed, set on making the best of it and not using the word “paralyzed.” She didn’t need to know that either. “Like I told you, the horse he was riding fell on him. The doctor says he’ll need physical therapy to move right again.” 

Junior nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “That’ll be hard on Daddy.”

“Yeah, I reckon so.”

“You said yesterday that the doctor was going to try something to bring him out of it. I was hoping ....”

Yeah, Jack had been hoping too. But just because it hadn’t happened yesterday didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen today. “It’s something they do three or four times a day until it works. They did it once last night. They wave smells under his nose to try to wake up his brain.” 

She didn’t say anything back. Jack concentrated on driving and finding his way to the hospital, since he hadn’t come this direction before. He’d figured there’d be signs .... 

“Have you talked to him?” Junior asked suddenly.

“What?” 

“Have you talked to him?” Junior repeated, patiently. “I’ve read that people can hear even when we think they can’t.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, remembering his few words. “I’ve talked.”

“And he didn’t show no sign when he heard your voice?” 

“Maybe he didn’t hear it. We don’t know how his hearing is.” 

“Oh.” Junior sort of sat back more in her seat. Jack noted how her hands were calm in her lap. She seemed a lot older than just-turned-twenty. He could imagine her with six kids and not flustered in the middle of them hollering. 

“I’ll try,” she said. “Maybe he’ll wake up for me.”

Any way it happened, from Junior, from Sandra, from the fucking cafeteria worker, any way at all would work for Jack. He pressed his foot on the accelerator. The speed limit here was fifty-five; there was no sense in going fifty. 

The second bed in Room 388 was empty when Jack let Junior go in ahead of him, and the curtain that had cut Ennis’s bed off from the rest of the room was pulled back. Jack saw right away that Ennis was how he’d left him the night before. A pang of disappointment shot through him. He swallowed it down. Maybe no change, but ...no worse, and that was good right there. 

Junior paused at the foot of Ennis’s bed as Jack came up behind her. “Daddy,” she said. She went around to the window side, leaned to put her cheek against his, and hugged him. Jack hung back, because there was no place for him in that father-daughter scene. 

“Daddy, it’s Junior. I flew down from Sheridan to see you. My first flight, and now you’re not awake to say hi.”

She went on like that, talking steadily, with no big highs or lows, as she took off her jacket, as she settled herself in Jack’s chair, and as she took her daddy’s hand and squeezed it.

And there was that throb of resentment again, because Jack wanted to touch Ennis so bad the palm of his hand prickled; he’d been thinking of coming to Ennis again from the time he’d awakened in the morning and realized he’d have to put that moment off. But how to touch Ennis in front of Junior, how to kiss his man’s hair and hold his hand -- when Junior was already holding it -- Jack didn’t know. 

Jack figured it was time for one of those deep breaths he was supposed to keep taking. He did it, rode the crest of the stabbing, and took it like a man needed to take it.

She looked toward Jack and asked, “Does he look any better from yesterday?”

“About the same,” he lied. The scrapes on Ennis’s cheeks were picked out by bruises coming out strong under them now. And Ennis had always been one to keep clean-shaven, even when they were camping in the wilderness. To see him all stubbly now changed his look, like he was wearing a disguise that said, _hell, no, this isn’t Ennis Del Mar._ And thank God somebody had closed up the hospital gown on him. It wouldn’t have been right the way it’d been before, with Junior here. 

“I’ll go see if I can get a nurse or somebody in here to tell us how he’s doing.”

“All right,” she said, hardly seeming to pay attention. 

He found the same nurse who’d been on duty the afternoon before, and she gave them the list: no change, coma stim and range of motion exercises to continue, and she was keeping a close eye on the painkiller dosage since she didn’t want the patient to be in any distress. Doctor Rutherford would be in on Monday morning for a more comprehensive conversation, and until then please know, Miss Del Mar, that everything possible is being done for your father, the best care is being provided, and there is no reason for undue concern at this time. 

After she left, Jack couldn’t bring himself to sit down in Betty Jo’s spot. He stood with his one hand in his pocket as he listened to Junior start talking again. She explained to Ennis about her class schedule, how she’d just completed a two week segment on soups and was starting up on pastry. Where he’d scarcely been able to find two words for Ennis the day before, she had a flood of them. Not said easily, he could see; he already knew she wasn’t a talker. But said with determination, like she’d done planning of her own on the way to Santa Fe, like Jack had, and was convinced that her daddy needed her to bring out one sentence after another. 

She ran down eventually, and the silence was better than the chatter by a long shot. Jack went to the wall at the foot of the bed and leaned against it, because he hurt less that way than sitting. He fought off the heaviness that had been on him the day before, wanting to set his mind on the positive. If none of this had happened, at this time on a Sunday Ennis would be finishing up with Trouble and Dawn and the pinto by now. Jack’d had plans of checking over the mower and the small tractor he’d got from the fair; maybe the two of them would finish at the same time and walk back to the house together. Ennis would be sweaty, with a stick of straw stuck in his hair that Jack would pull out, teasing, and Ennis would swipe at him, pretending he wanted a fight. They’d go through the screen door into the kitchen, and Ennis would sit down to take off his boots. Jack would say, hey, how about hamburgers tonight? I’ll cook. And Ennis would lift his head and say, fine by me. Or maybe he’d say, hell, no, you let me take care of dinner. 

Later on they’d eat. Jack would balance his checkbook, and Ennis would chew on the end of a pencil while he figured out how much more special feed he needed to order for the pinto. They’d go to bed, Ennis on the right side, Jack on the left side, and after they’d made love, they’d fall asleep, to start the work week when they woke up. 

All of it ordinary, and all of it unknown to this young woman who hadn’t lived with her father since she was twelve. Or had it been eleven? Jack passed a hand over his chin and didn’t bother to add up the years. He wanted that ordinary, and he was going to have it. He would.

His eyes lingered again on Ennis with his beat-up face. _Come on, you goddamned, stubborn asshole, wake up! What’re you waiting for, an invitation? Okay, you’ve got one. Time to quit laying around and bring your sorry self back to this world. Junior’s waiting on you._

_And I am too._

*****

Junior was down the hall calling her mother and then her sister. Jack sat with his hip hitched up on the side of the bed. He stroked the sole of Ennis’s bare foot in his lap over and over again. Firm, sure, strong, all those things that inside Jack wasn’t. 

His ribs hurt like fucking hell. He should take some of that Darvocet, but he’d fall asleep, and then he’d miss .... 

He knew somebody had washed the dirt and the sweat off his fella, and he knew the nurses had their hands on him a couple of times an hour, even more often, and Sandra had been in three times today already, she’d told them. The doctor had probably touched Ennis too, that other man with hands that he’d never thought Ennis would have on him. All sorts of people touching Ennis, even Junior with her hugging and her cheek to cheek rubbing and her hand holding. But now it was Jack’s turn. Jack’s turn. Nobody else would touch Ennis this way. This belonged to them.

Ennis’s foot was warm in his hands. Jack touched each of the toes in turn, smallest to largest, feeling the cut of the nails and a callus. The space between the toes, he dipped his fingers there too, separating, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on that face, the unmoving eyes, the dry mouth that was a little open, but only for quiet breath to go in and out. 

The sure thought that today was the day was ebbing, and he felt dumb for letting himself believe in it at all. Some part of himself that he depended on had been yanked out, straight from his chest, his heart, his head. It seemed every part of him was tuned to what he didn’t have right now. 

Jack looked down at his fingers moving, remembering the back rub that Ennis had given him in Childress, and how he’d touched Jack’s foot in the back room the Saturday before, when Bobby had been such an asshole. Each time, that’s what Jack had needed, and Ennis had given it to him. It had felt good. He hoped that this felt good to Ennis right now, wherever he was, wherever his man was lost. 

*****

“Are you hungry?” Jack asked. He’d reluctantly pulled the sheet back over Ennis, up to his waist again, long before Junior had come back to the room, though he’d got stubborn and hadn’t moved from standing by the window. Junior was sitting in the other chair now. “It’s almost dinnertime, and I even forgot to ask if you’d had lunch.” 

“They fed us on the plane, this little meal like a frozen dinner. It wasn’t very good.” 

“Then how about if we go down to the hospital cafeteria? Or I can drive you to the motel and we can get you checked in. I’m sure we can find someplace quick to eat around there.”

She pulled her pony-tail around over her shoulder. All the afternoon long that they’d been together, that was the only nervous gesture he’d noted in her, that she did that now and then. If Ennis had been hard to break through to up on Brokeback, so was Junior, closed off from him. Spending the afternoon with her had been like walking across a sheet of ice, where a man had no traction. 

“Do you know if we can take food out from the cafeteria and bring it up here?”

“I don’t see why not. Want to do that?”

“Yes.” Her eyes flicked up to him, and he didn’t know what she saw, though for sure he felt that she was measuring him with that steady gaze. “Will you go, or should I? I don’t want to leave daddy alone.” 

It seemed the right thing to do, though Jack didn’t want to. “I’ll go.” Fuck, he was tired.

He looked up because there was movement by the doorway. Somebody was standing there, not in a white coat or anything else to work at the hospital. Hesitant, the man took a few steps in. 

“Jack?”

Andy O’Donnell stood there. Honest to God holy roller Andy, wearing a brown corduroy sportscoat and pressed jeans, Andy-from-the-feedlot, Andy-with-the-questions, Andy-his-friend. 

“Andy?” he managed. Here was that same unexpected spaceship landed with Martians, only this time in his backyard, not Andy’s. What the hell? He got his feet unstuck and went around the bed to the middle of the room, where Andy met him. For a split second Jack expected to shake hands with the man, but then he was taken up in a hug. 

It was almost too much. Those two, three seconds of being squeezed hurt bad, but they squeezed his heart worse. Andy was _here?_

“I read about the accident in the _Taos News_ this morning,” Andy said as soon as he let Jack go. “I am so sorry this has happened to you. And to Ennis. How is he? You must be terribly worried.” 

Jack was still trying to wrap his mind around the sight of him. “You .... Andy, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Like I told you, we read about the accident in the -- ”

“No, I mean in Santa Fe. We’re a long way from Cimarron.” 

“Oh. Well. Carolyn and I have been talking about coming here for a day for a while. When I saw the article, we moved our plans up so I’d have the chance to visit here. We’ve been in the city since before lunch, and -- ”

“Visit?”

“Yes, the article said that Ennis was in Saint Vincent’s. I assumed you’d be here too. I mean, I knew you wouldn’t want to be any other place, considering how ...how ...I mean, how you ....”

Jack rescued him. “Carolyn’s here?”

Andy nodded. “She’s waiting for me downstairs in the lounge, though. I thought you might prefer it if I came up here alone. I didn’t know how Ennis was doing. Or you either. How are you?” 

“I’m okay.” But it meant a lot, a whole lot, to be asked with some caring.

“No, really, come on, you didn’t get those stitches from nothing. The paper said you were hurt by the lightning too.” 

“Busted some ribs, that’s about it.” From the corner of his eye, Jack saw how that brought Junior’s head up. He turned toward her and said, “Junior, I want you to meet a friend of mine from work, Andy O’Donnell. Andy, this is Ennis’s daughter, Alma Del Mar.” 

Andy took the news that Ennis had a child with lifted eyebrows, but he shook Junior’s hand anyway. “I’m sorry your father was injured. I want you to know that I will be keeping him in my prayers. I’ve only met him once, but he seemed a fine man.” 

“Thank you.”

“And I know that Jack here thinks the world of him, of course.” Andy glanced behind Junior, toward the bed. He lowered his voice. “I guess he’s sleeping?”

“Still unconscious,” Jack said, just as quietly. 

“Oh.” Andy seemed not to know what to make of that. “Surely the doctors -- ”

“It’s only been two days,” Junior put in. 

“Oh, of course,” Andy said hastily. “I’m sure he’ll be fine soon.” 

“We hope so,” she said.

Jack’s brain was spinning, all sorts of feelings dredged up and then turned over, his resentment of Andy being put on hold, but mainly he realized he couldn’t keep ignoring Corliss and Diego and how he was expected at work the next day. “Listen, Andy, I was about to go down to the cafeteria and get us something to eat. Would you like to -- ”

Andy shook his head. “I promised Carolyn that we’d go to Joseph’s for Mexican food, sorry.” 

“No, I didn’t mean that. Nobody wants to eat hospital food if they don’t have to. Why don’t you walk with me now while I get it for Junior and me, and you can help me figure how to handle things at work.” 

“Oh, sure. Miss Del Mar, I hope you don’t mind if we leave you with your father? I’m sure we won’t be long.” 

Of course Junior didn’t mind; she wanted alone time with her dad too. Jack asked what she wanted to eat, clapped his hand on his pants pocket where his wallet was, and left, feeling the presence of Ennis behind him as clearly as if he’d sat up and talked. But Jack shrugged that off because there wasn’t anything to be done except what he had to do right now. He didn’t lead Andy too far, just down the echoing hall to the waiting lounge near the elevator. There was a TV up in the corner going, but the sound was off, and nobody else was there. 

“Jack?” Andy asked when Jack took him to the far wall, where nobody could come up on them without him seeing them. He sat down in a slippery plastic chair even though he had to do it carefully and he had to sit straight in it. Andy, looking confused, sat next to him. “What’s the matter?”

“Did Corliss send you?” Jack asked bluntly. It took some courage to say it, but he figured he’d better know right now where he stood. 

“Corliss? Well, no, I haven’t talked with -- ”

“Or James? Checking up on me?”

Andy’s brow furrowed more than Jack had ever seen on him. “No, not James either. I told you, we saw the article -- ”

“Andy, don’t shit with me, it’s important. You don’t know about what Corliss and James are doing with the illegals?” 

Andy drew back. “Oh. That. Oh, well ....” Nervously, he fingered his upper lip. “You mean how they’re ....” His eyes darted to Jack and then away, to seek the pattern on the tile floor. “But what does that have to do with whether they know that I’m here?”a

“They’re moving Mexicans from over the border and then sending them north. Making money off that and not doing good works for the church. You knew that, and you never told me?” 

“I couldn’t,” Andy sort of gasped, and in those two words, Jack took the measure of the man. Andy could talk to Jack about saving his immortal soul, as if he had all the answers and stood on the high ground, but when it got tough, the high ground didn’t mean much, and he ran away. “I have responsibilities, Carolyn and Heidi.” 

“Yeah, well, I’ve got responsibilities too,” Jack spit out, “and he’s out cold in that hospital bed. You should’ve let me know what was going on. Friday morning, I walked in on James ....” Jack stopped himself, the way it seemed he’d been doing a lot these days. “Look, I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see, and Corliss and James know it. If I don’t show up for work tomorrow, they’re going to think the worst. They’ll think that I went to the cops and turned them in, and I’ll be in big trouble. They’ll -- ”

“No, they won’t. They’ll know that you had this accident and -- ”

Jack shook his head. “If I was Corliss, I wouldn’t believe it. Worse, I’d want to make sure of it. He’ll want to see if I was really hurt enough to miss work or if this was some kind of bluff. I can’t afford for him to track me down here like you did, because then he’ll find out about me and Ennis. You got me?” Of a sudden, the need to keep Ennis a secret was more urgent than it had ever been. If Corliss found out Jack was gay .... These were men who buried bodies in the desert. He couldn’t afford to fool with them. 

“Maybe you should go to work tomorrow, explain things, let him know you’ll need -- ”

“No way. I am not leaving Ennis.”

“Then what -- ”

“I’ll call Corliss tonight, tell him about what happened, and let him know he’s going to be without a salesman for a while. I’ll tell him I have no intention of going to the cops and that he can move every Mexican in the country up here for all I care. But you’ve got to do me a favor.” 

“What?” Andy was doubtful.

“You’ve got to call him too, tonight before I do. Tell him you saw me here in the Santa Fe hospital this morning and how busted up I was. That I was being let out this past afternoon and was going to stay here in the city with ...with a friend while I was getting better.”

“Jack ....”

“If you do that, he won’t know exactly where I am. He won’t check out where I live, and he won’t get any ideas about visiting me and finding out anything about Ennis. James won’t either. See how that works?”

“Of course I do,” Andy snapped, and Jack was glad to see some spine in the man. “I guess ...I guess I can do that for you.”

Jack nodded. “Good. I’ll owe you for that.” 

There was Andy’s wrinkled forehead again. “Something ...you saw something you shouldn’t have, you said?” 

“Yeah,” Jack said briefly, and he finally looked over at the hall where folks were moving back and forth. “It’s best if you don’t know what I saw, don’t you think? You’ve got a good job too. Do they know that you know what’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t think so.”

“Well ....” The elevator bell rang, and Jack heard the doors sliding clear. The day crashed in on him, too long, and now here was one more uncertainty, Andy come to complicate things when his life was already tangled up. Jesus. Jack looked up at the TV, at the soundless images, what it was like for folks who couldn’t hear. It’s pretty much how he felt right now, disconnected. Except ...Andy had come to visit.

“Andy?”

“Yes, Jack?”

“It’s real nice that you came here today. I appreciate it.”

“It’s something we do,” Andy said with a small smile.

“What’s that?”

“We Christians. You know, acts of mercy like visiting the sick. If there is anything I can do for you, Jack, please let me know. Do you need me to bring you anything from your house?”

It had never even crossed his mind to ask Andy, but now he saw that he could have. If something like this had happened to him in Childress, he could have asked Randy for help, or Morgan when he’d lived there, or other people him and Lureen had been friendly with. Back in Texas, he’d been part of a community of friends even though he’d hardly been aware, because mainly he’d hidden from them, not lived fully in their sight. When he’d gone to New Mexico with Ennis, it had been just them. Nobody came with. But it seemed they’d found some people, friends, anyway.

“No, I think I’m okay for a while, but ...thanks.” Jack stood up, clutching his side as he did. 

“It won’t be hard to tell Corliss how badly you’re doing, Jack,” Andy told him, getting up too. “You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a hell of a weekend.” 

“And you’re worried sick about Ennis, aren’t you?”

He didn’t want to think of all the reasons why. “Yeah, I sure am. Though you don’t get it, I know.”

Andy sighed. “Regardless of what I think about the morality of what you’re doing, the reality is that you’re hurt both physically and emotionally by what’s happened. That’s what’s important now. I’m not without compassion.”

Jack wasn’t sure that anybody who could say that -- _I’m not without compassion_ \-- was a person who really felt it, at least right then, but he could see that Andy was trying. He hardly wanted to think more about it, though; the effort of thinking through what needed to be done with Corliss so he didn’t lose his job, or have a lot worse things happen, had wrenched him around from where he needed to be, with all his attention trained on Ennis and what needed to be done for him. With a throbbing weight in his stomach, he remembered that there was going to be a conversation with Doctor Rutherford the next morning, and that Junior was waiting back at the room. All this day he’d let Junior have more than her due, take her space from his, but it wasn’t how he wanted things to be, always stepping back ....

He went with Andy to the cafeteria and waited for the man to point out the chapel to him, especially since they caught somebody crying going inside. But Andy kept his mouth shut and then insisted on carrying the two bags of food. Jack didn’t bother to tell him about the luggage he’d carried that day, or the drive back and forth to Eagle Nest; all that was showing anyway, he figured, because if he looked like he felt, he looked a hundred years old. 

Going back to Ennis’s room was like going home to Lureen after a trip to the wilderness with the man he loved: the world told him it should feel great to be back where he lived, with his family, his wife, but what his heart cried for just wasn’t there. 

Sandra was there when he walked in with Andy, talking with Junior over by the window. She was explaining how she was going to start some deep massage therapy, moving from Ennis’s fingers and toes in toward his center, and how she’d keep going with the coma stimulation, the range of motion exercises, and now the massage all through tomorrow. Jack sagged, knowing she’d want them to leave the room again when he’d just got back. But he wouldn’t say no. He pushed past Betty Jo’s chair, because that’s how he thought of it, and looked at the therapist from across the bed. The monitor at his elbow kept beeping low and soothing; he didn’t pay it any heed anymore.

“It’s almost the end of my shift today, but I didn’t want to leave without trying again,” she was saying. “I thought I’d teach the two of you some simple massage techniques tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure,” Jack said. He doubted that anything anybody taught him today would stick. “Okay with you, Junior?”

“Uh, Jack?” came Andy’s low voice from the foot of the bed.

Junior was nodding. “That sounds fine to me, ma’am, though I’m wondering if -- ”

“Jack?” Andy said again, louder. “I thought you said he was .... His eyes are open.” 

He hadn’t even looked at Ennis since he’d walked into the room, but Jack looked now, and his heart gave such a thump that it felt like it would come right through his chest. For the first time since those moments on the windswept mountain, Ennis’s eyes sure were open, though heavy-lidded and sort of dazed looking. And his head had moved, turned on the pillow to where he could stare up at the person closest to him on his right side, Sandra. 

“Keep quiet,” she said urgently. “Let him take his time. No sudden moves. This is a good sign.”

The best fucking sign. Jack would have held his breath if the ribs would’ve let him, but he stood as still as he could, waiting ....

He could see the question in Ennis’s eyes; could anybody else? Of course he didn’t know Sandra. He probably had no idea where he was, like Jack hadn’t when he’d awakened the morning before at Holy Cross. Ennis blinked, and he kept both eyes closed so long that Jack thought that was it, good news but not what they really wanted. But then those eyes showed again, traveling from Sandra to where Junior was standing next to her, down by Ennis’s feet. 

More confusion. Jack wasn’t sure whether Ennis realized that was Junior or not. Maybe it didn’t make sense to him that she was there. “Daddy,” came Junior’s breathy whisper, followed by Sandra’s “Shhh.” 

More blinks, shorter this time, and then Ennis’s sight was on Andy, slow and steady, and that glazed look didn’t change much. For long seconds Ennis stared at him, and Jack just about hollered: _Over here! I’m here!_ But Sandra had told them to keep quiet ....

Another long blink. When he was back looking in the world, Ennis’s eyes were still fixed on Andy, as if he couldn’t move past the sandy-haired man. Maybe somewhere in the back of his head he thought he should know Andy ...or maybe fear him? Was that a touch of fear now showing?

Again, Junior whispered “Daddy,” but as soon as she said it Andy moved, smoothly and surely, one, two, three steps around the bed until he was standing behind Jack’s shoulder. 

Ennis’s eyes tracked him as he walked, his head rolled from right to left on the pillow, and as naturally as could be, his sight moved to the last person in the group around his bed. Finally he was looking straight at Jack. 

Jack’s heart was hammering a hundred times a minute, and he thought maybe he was going to make a fool of himself. “Ennis?” He pressed up against the bedrail and looked down on that bruised, cut-up face, and right then all the things that had been yanked out of him settled back into place. Ennis was looking up at him like he had in the middle of the storm, as if no time at all had passed from that moment to this one. It broke his heart, that look, for it showed such hunger .... It showed that Ennis needed with a desperate, howling need to stay right there in this moment, with Jack, but he was sure Jack would disappear in the next second, was resigned to it, and those brown eyes showed the knowing of loneliness and pain. 

Quick as he could, Jack leaned over the bedrail, planted his right elbow on the pillow, and took strands of his man’s honey-hair between his fingers. He stroked Ennis’s head and said, out loud because he didn’t know how well he could be heard, “It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere. It’s all right.” 

Ennis’s lips moved, trying to say his name. Nothing but a puff of air came out, along with what sounded like a croak, but there wasn’t any question what he was saying, at least to Jack there wasn’t. 

Then Sandra was next to Jack, and she fiddled with the rail until it rolled down and away. “Sit up next to him,” she said. “Be careful of his wrist.”

Jack slid onto the mattress, hitching himself over so his left thigh was pressed close. He stretched across to take Ennis’s right hand, and yeah it hurt to do that, but he wasn’t hardly aware, because he was drowning instead in the best sight he’d seen in his whole life. Better than the sight of Ennis’ coming to him, hat in hand, in the tent up on Brokeback, better than Ennis coming charging down the apartment steps in Riverton, and maybe, yeah, even better than the day he’d opened his door in Amarillo and seen Ennis standing on the doorstep, ready to move in. Because now he knew what it was like to have this man by his side every fucking day, and he couldn’t give that up. 

Jack put their fingers together and pulled their hands across Ennis’s waist to rest them there. He felt that Ennis was helping him some, was flexing against him, trying to keep them together. And all the while their eyes were joined, and if Jack could have climbed through all the way to Ennis’s center, he would have. Because Ennis wasn’t completely aware, no way he would be this needful if he was, and that meant Jack still didn’t know for sure if it’d been ten minutes or one, and how much of Ennis remained .... But here was some part of Ennis, anyway, a part of him that had come out of hiding, that needed. 

Holding his hand tightly, Jack wanted to put his fingers through hair again, but he contented himself with what he’d done the night before, a small movement of his thumb against Ennis’s bruised hand, over and over. 

“Can you hear me? You’re in the hospital, Ennis, but you’re going to be all right. Hear that, in the hospital?” 

It didn’t seem to him that the words were getting through, because Ennis’s gaze didn’t change, didn’t shift from his single-minded devouring of Jack’s eyes on him. Behind him, Sandra said, “Don’t worry, he’s just not processing right now. The only thing he’s really aware of is you. It’s not unusual. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” 

He did that, easily, naturally, what he’d wanted from the very beginning, to give to Ennis if only his stubborn man would agree to take. Jack sat there in a space that included Ennis, him, and Sandra’s voice. He said, “I’m here. Don’t worry, I’m here, and you’re going to be fine. Hear me? Fine. Don’t you worry, not one second.” 

Jack could see when the fear began to ebb, when he was looked at with mostly wonder, and then he saw when the strength started to go, when Ennis began to fade back to where he’d been before. Ennis’s eyelids fluttered, but before he was gone completely, Jack leaned close and pressed a kiss against his temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up again,” he whispered. 

Maybe Ennis hadn’t heard, but then again maybe he had. Jack pulled back and looked down on his sleeping man. Then he got off the bed, wanting to pull up the rail but knowing he’d hurt himself if he did, and looked over at the others. Junior was crying, Andy was shocked-white, and Sandra was looking almighty pleased that what she’d been doing the past twenty-four hours had worked. 

Jack swallowed, and then he felt a smile start, one that he couldn’t stop and didn’t want to stop either. He stepped around the bed to Junior, and he knew he surprised her by taking her in his arms and hugging her, because she didn’t hug back. 

“Don’t cry,” he told her anyway, with the stray ends of her hair tickling his nose. “I think your daddy’s going to be all right.” 

*****  



	8. Walking in the Long Way

In the Santa Fe La Quinta Inn, at one twenty-three in the morning, Jack still wasn’t asleep. He’d made the mistake of trying to roll onto his side, or maybe it was how he’d driven back and forth from Eagle Nest, or it could be the way he’d sat unwisely on Ennis’s bed the night before, all of it finally combining to set his side on fire. Or maybe he was bothered by a touch of fear, because he still didn’t really know how much of Ennis was back. 

He dragged a hand over his face, though careful near his stitches where he was sore and bruised. Ennis opening those eyes was good news, and it was dumb to fear otherwise. Waking up even a little told of good things to come, not crazy imaginings. 

Then again, it could be that phone call with Corliss that was keeping Jack up. 

_“No,” Corliss said flatly, and all his hard-jawed, fancy-dressing, I’ve-got-you-by-the-short-and-curlies certainty was in that voice. “You get no more time off.”_

_“Fine,” Jack snapped. “I’ll drag myself in and spend the day sacked out on the desk, because I’m not in any fit state to work. Not sure I can even drive, to tell you the truth.”_

_“It seems a convenient time.”_

_“If you’re talking about what I didn’t see on Friday, you’ve got no worries on that. That’s your business.”_

_“And yours now too,” Corliss said. “You hear me?”_

_How’d his life get so complicated? More than complicated; this wasn’t anything to fool around with. “I hear you. It’s my business too. If I hadn’t got hit by lightning, I’d be there tomorrow like usual. What happened to me doesn’t have anything to do with Friday morning.”_

_“Are you sure you aren’t acting the faggot here? I need men I can count on, who won’t turn tail and run. Real men. Have I read you wrong, Jack?”_

_Jack didn’t let himself stop even for a second. “A faggot? Hell, no. I’m not a coward. You can count on me, you’ve got to know that.”_

_“I’m paying you well.”_

_“You sure are. I want to keep my job.”_

_“There aren’t many jobs like yours around here. There aren’t any.”_

_“I know that,” Jack said. Along with all the other lies spouting out of his mouth, he could grovel with the best of men. “I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me and for those big bucks coming my way each week. Life at the feedlot suits me. I won’t let you down.” He almost added “Mister Hamilton,” but about gagged thinking of it._

_“You already took days off when you went to that funeral.”_

_“And now they’ve got me drugged up on this pain medicine.”_

_“Broken ribs aren’t that bad.”_

_“Easy to say when it’s not you that has them. And it wasn’t any picnic getting shocked by lightning, let me tell you.”_

_“I need you here. We have business to conduct.”_

_And I need to be where I am, Jack thought, but he was walking a tightrope and he knew it. He had to give a little._

_“How about if I call in, maybe Tuesday, to see what Marge has for me. I can do some stuff by phone, I suppose, and make some calls. That’s if my head stops whirling around from the medicine.”_

_“Andy said you were in Santa Fe.”_

_“That’s the truth. I’m staying with a little lady friend I’ve got here. She’s taking good care of me.”_

_Finally, he’d found the right thing to say. Corliss let out a bark of laughter, sounding so weird that Jack held the phone away. “So that’s what this is about. I’ve been wondering where you’ve been hiding her.”_

_“Shit, no, I’m not putting one over on you. I’m in no shape to do anything with her now.”_

_“Just make sure she doesn’t interfere with you getting back here as quickly as you can. We’re entering a critical time for our growth, and I need all my men with me, all the way with me. Do you understand?”_

When Jack finally put down the phone, his hand was shaking. He hoped that was the best sales job he’d ever put over on anybody. 

By the time the clock showed two a.m., he gave up on going it alone. He got out of bed and dragged himself into the bathroom, where the bottle of Darvocet was sitting next to his toothbrush. He’d told Corliss that he was taking it, so he might as well do it. The directions said two, but he only popped one in his mouth. He needed to sleep.

Maybe the doctors called it sleep, but he called it nightmares. It seemed he came close to waking up every ten minutes, like a fish coming to the surface of the water and skimming under the sky, enough to confuse him so he wondered if he was swimming or flying. The blue of the sky tasted like the clearest, freshest water, like strawberries, and the blue of the ocean tasted deep and heavy, like the gold of a wedding band or secrets whispered in the night. He shivered and was awake enough to think he should pull up the blanket, but he wasn’t near awake enough to move. Instead, up he went, flying, flapping his wings. But then the ring on his finger slipped off. He went down after it, shouting, hit the brown earth, and dove deep.

Jack jolted awake, sat up in bed, and grabbed at his left side. “Damnit!” he tried to say out loud, but it turned into a midnight whisper because the throbbing was stealing his air, filling him up instead with .... There wasn’t any taste left in his mouth except Ennis’s taste, Ennis’s lips and his tongue, and a stronger taste in places Jack didn’t have words for.

Jesus, he ached. 

Fuck this. He was through putting up with this sorry excuse for rest.

Jack closed the motel room door behind him with care, because at six-thirty with the sun rising, he didn’t want to wake up anybody, least of all Alma Christine Del Mar Junior down the hall. He’d made himself a cup of coffee, taken a shower, strapped himself back into the rib belt that had to be the best thing God had created since beer, and downed three Tylenol, because he’d have to be dying before he’d take the Darvocet again. He had one place to be and one person to see. There was no sense twiddling his thumbs watching TV waiting for his eight-thirty breakfast appointment with Junior, when all he had to do was drive a couple of blocks to get to Ennis.

The Santa Fe streets weren’t filled yet with the get-into-work crowd, and the hospital parking lot was deserted. Nobody manned the reception desk, and nobody kept him company in the elevator. As he walked down the quiet hallway, none of the nurses or aides were in sight. The red triangle outside Room 388 hadn’t changed, warning about body fluids, and the door was wide open. 

There still wasn’t another patient in the near bed and for once nobody hanging around Ennis’s bed either, where Ennis looked to be peacefully sleeping. Sleeping would be so much better than unconscious. Jack tip-toed to the bedside and, quiet as he could, moved the rail down. With nobody here to see, he wasn’t going to hold back. 

As soon as Jack settled his hip on the mattress, Ennis turned his head against the pillow. Then he turned it back again. In the light of a new day, everything looked different. Everything seemed possible, not like the hands-clenching anxiety from the weekend. Maybe it was that he’d got used to the scrapes, and the bruises, and the IV, and the hospital gown. Ennis’s stubble was really showing now.

It was the start of the best kind of day when those eyelids fluttered and then opened, looking lazy, with none of the desperate seeking from before. Ennis looked up at him as if it was a Sunday morning in their home and they had nothing much to do. Though Jack tried to judge whether there was real knowing in that gaze, he couldn’t tell. 

“Hey there,” Jack said. He reached over and took Ennis’s hand like he’d done the night before. For all that they’d hardly ever held hands, they slid together easily. “How’re you doing today?” 

It didn’t seem that Ennis heard him. He tried again, saying it louder. “How’re you doing today?” 

Ennis licked his lips, his tongue seeming to stick on the dryness. Jack winced to see it; he didn’t remember those lips being cracked the night before. 

“Okay,” finally came, like that one word was pushed out from under a ton of bricks. 

“Are you hurting anywhere?” 

Ennis’s broad forehead furrowed. “Wha ....” 

Again Jack raised his voice. “If you’re hurting, I can get one of the nurses to give you more for pain.” 

That didn’t get through at all, because it seemed that Ennis was trying to figure out what he’d said, or what it meant, but then it was clear that he gave up on it. Instead, his fingers moved in Jack’s loose grip, and Jack let go of him. With what seemed to be trembling effort, Ennis’s fingertips skimmed Jack’s arm and then collapsed around his wrist. Jack pressed his other hand against Ennis’s, keeping him there, ignoring the pull on his side. 

“Reh ... ” Ennis murmured. “Are you ... real?” 

“You think I’m a dream? Yeah, I’m really here,” Jack choked out. 

“Can’t ... be.” In the smallest way, Ennis shook his head. 

“Yes,” Jack insisted. “Where else do you think I’d be, with you here in the hospital? I’m not going anywhere until you’re on your feet again.” 

It was too much to say. Ennis didn’t understand, he could tell that. But it didn’t matter. Sandra had said that this would take some time, with Ennis in and out, with his awareness expanding in fits and starts. For now, Ennis awake any way at all was enough. 

Jack could feel the heaviness in Ennis’s arm as strength left, and he brought their joined hands down to the sheet. “You go back to sleep now.”

“Don’t ....” But eyes were already closing. 

“You’re going to be all right. You’ll get back home in no time. Those horses can’t do without you, you know.”

Was that the ghost of a smile he saw? Maybe so. Jack watched while tension eased out of Ennis’s face, and after a minute he was pretty sure Ennis slept.

Jack sat there, looking down at his man, finding the peace that he’d come here for. Yeah, this really was the best way to start the day. 

*****

“Get on there!”

Ennis leaned low over the horse’s neck and urged him on. Samson neighed and took off, his legs flashing as he ran and ran and ran. They flew together across the prairie, ignoring the icy wind and the storm clouds, man and horse together searching for Jack. He couldn’t believe that he’d thought that man was gone. He should have known that he’d turn up like a bad penny. For years Ennis had lived in that tiny cabin and felt dead, felt Jack-gone like somebody had shoved a knife in his chest. But if Jack wasn’t gone .... Ennis could hardly breathe to think that. Ennis had to find him. Brad couldn’t have him, and neither could the coach or fucking Randall. 

On the west side of Denver, Samson slowed. Ennis wanted him to keep going and spurred him again and again. He cursed at him, but the horse ignored him and came to a stop. Didn’t that horse know? Even if he had to walk all the way to the north pole, Ennis had to keep looking. He was aiming for what he felt in his bones instead of really remembered, a time when things had been free between them, short shining moments when Jack had been full-Jack and Ennis had been full-Ennis. But what good was learning back then when there wasn’t any having now? 

A branch dripped water down his collar. Samson had stopped in the middle of a forest. It might have been broad daylight out, but no sun came in here, and Ennis sat on top of his horse in shadows. He couldn’t see anything around except for the trees, but there was a trick of the land, cause he could hear ... what? What was that?

“How’re your cooking classes coming along?” 

Ennis groaned out loud. Jack. But he couldn’t tell where he was. What direction should he turn to find him? Instead he sat and strained to hear. The words faded in and out, and what they meant got lost in the rustling of the leaves and the _shush-shush_ of the pine needles.

“School’s not bad, easier than I expected. I talked about it yesterday to my daddy. Didn’t you hear that?”

“Well, yeah, but .... How long are you staying?” 

“Until Tuesday afternoon. That way I’ll only have two days of class to make up. I guess I got to thank you, Mister Twist, for arranging for that travel agent to call me, and paying for my flying.” 

“Glad I could do it.”

“I had to get here quick for Daddy. He’s never been in a hospital before.”

“Sure he has.”

“No, he never -- ”

“When you and your sister were born. He’s told me how it was when the nurse put you in his arms that first time.”

“He has?” 

“Yeah. He likes to say that. It’s a real fine memory for him.” 

Remembering slammed through him. He slid off Samson, grabbed at the saddle horn, and swayed like a drunk. The smell of the waiting room that wrinkled his nose, how he felt unsure of himself standing there, twenty years old and he was gonna be a daddy, a baby with a pink bracelet on her wrist being held out to him by an old nurse, and he took Junior up. She fit naturally against him, so tiny. 

He tried to move closer and wanted to hit something when he found that wasn’t gonna happen. If he let go of Samson he’d fall in a heap onto the mustiness of the forest floor. He was weak like his little baby.

“That’s not the same as the way he’s in the hospital now, though.” 

“I know. Listen, your daddy’s going to be okay. Maybe it’ll take a while, and he’ll need help here and there to get back to the way he was, but he’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well ... sure I do.”

“Doctor Rutherford said they needed to wait until he waked up more, to do evaluations.” 

“You can bet those will turn out all right.”

“I hope so.”

“So ... so ... so maybe we can work things out and get you to visit us soon. He’d like that. I know he would, because he’s been missing seeing you girls. We’ve got an extra room already made up.”

“I suppose.”

“Taos is less than an hour away. We could show you that.” 

“Taos? I don’t know it.”

“It’s the biggest town near us, where the tourists go. There’s a lot of art done there, galleries all around, the town square ....” 

“What would I want to go there for? I’d want to spend the time with Daddy.”

“Sure, sure. He’ll want you to see our house, with the field out back where he keeps his horses. If you come before he’s on his feet again, I could show them to you, take you on a ride.” 

“But they’re Daddy’s horses, not yours.”

He managed to stagger away from Samson, desperate for more of what floated around him like notes of music. But like most songs, he couldn’t make out what it meant. He caught hold of solid wood and that held him up, but no matter how much he listened, there wasn’t any more. That wasn’t okay. Nothing would be okay until Ennis found Jack.

Samson came and nuzzled him, his horsey whiskers brushing against Ennis’s cheek. He slipped down so he sat against the tree trunk and then toppled over onto his side. What was wrong with him? He needed to get back up on the horse to keep riding, but he didn’t have strength for anything except laying here in the dark. He’d have to rest where he was, cause for sure he wasn’t going back to the cabin, marking off the blank spaces on the calendar with nothing of life to fill them up. Not one of those days meant a damn thing. He threw his arm over his eyes. 

Samson didn’t like that one bit. Next thing Ennis knew, the horse grabbed the sleeve of his shirt in his yellow horse-teeth and yanked his arm away, leaving Ennis suddenly laying there in harsh light.

“Mister Del Mar? Mister Del Mar? Pay attention, please. Follow my finger with your eyes.”

What choice did he have, with a white-coated man shoving a finger in his face? Ennis followed it, sure, but he knew that wasn’t what life was about. 

“How is he?” 

The man ignored Junior’s question and pressed something cold on Ennis’s chest. He came to realize he hurt bad all over, but especially up by his shoulder. What had happened? What’d he done to himself? 

The cold-metal went away, and the man straightened. “Mister Del Mar, can you hear me?” 

Course he could hear, what’d he think, Ennis was a deaf old man? 

“Can you feel this?”

Feel what? White-coat maybe was pressing on something, but Ennis didn’t know what. He couldn’t see all that much, and whatever this fella wanted from him, he couldn’t give it. Fuck, he was tired. Samson should have let him be. 

Jack said, “Maybe we should let him sleep.”

His heart jumped up into his throat. He couldn’t hardly believe it, but Jack must be here. He blinked and tried to look past the glare, but he couldn’t see anything except the man directly in front of him. Jack? Jack!

“Is that your name?” white-coat asked. “Jack?” 

So close .... He wanted to holler and wave his arms around. He wanted to jump up and say _I’m right here! Why can’t you see me?_ But it didn’t matter. Ennis couldn’t move, couldn’t talk or do much of anything, cause sleep was pulling him down with Samson standing guard over him. The last thing he heard was the twittering of mourning doves nearby.

He dreamed, a nightmare of his daddy forcing him on a cattle drive and lashing at him with a whip as often as he aimed it at the animals. Alma was there too, screaming at him to take out the trash, but once he did it, she slammed the door in his face and told him to stay out with the garbage, cause he wasn’t any better than that. Then came a long, awful trip in a truck with flashing lights and a highway roaring, real bad though nothing much happened. 

But then came Jack talking. Ennis let go of his daddy, Alma, and all the fears that he’d picked up along the road of his life. He tried to let himself drift along toward Jack’s voice, sleep-way. He was on his back, floating, being washed this way and that by tiny waves, with a dark, star-filled sky over him. He could see the Big Dipper and Orion. It sure was pretty. Pretty .... It’d never been a bad thing, listening to Jack, and Ennis guessed that’s why he’d always put up with all the words that poured out of that man’s mouth. A man wouldn’t be wasting his time, listening. 

“I’ll get that. Hello?”

“Betty Jo, real good to hear from you. No, it’s okay for you to call here.”

“He opened his eyes some last night, and since then he’s been on and off. But the doctor says he’s on track and should be wide awake in a day or two.”

“I ... I don’t know for sure. But I think ... I think it was three minutes, not ten, I really do, because he talked to me early this morning. Only a little, but he sounded like himself.” 

“Yeah, I know, it’s ... it’s a real good thing.”

“I’ve got to thank you and Rocky -- ”

“Well, even so, I don’t know what we would’ve done without your help. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m doing okay.”

“Sure, put him on. Hey, Floyd, looks like Ennis is waking up. I’ll let Betty Jo tell you about it. She said you had something to tell me?”

“Oh, glad to hear that. I know Ennis has a soft spot for that horse. It would’ve been real bad to lose Jigger, with what happened to Delilah. What kind of shape is he in?”

“I trust you to do whatever needs to be done, and you know we’ll pay you for any -- But I can’t let you -- Well, okay, we’ll argue about that later.”

“Yeah, you’re right, that’s the important thing. I’ve got to hope things will work out. We’ve still got plenty in front of us here.”

“I know Ennis trusts you with the horses, and we sure do appreciate you helping us out.” 

“Sure, you call anytime. I’ll be here. Bye.”

Warmth stole through Ennis, a summer current flowing all around him, like his mama rocking him when he was sick, showing she cared. This was the best kind of dream, Jack calling him home.

“Who was that?”

“One of Ennis’s bosses, Betty Jo Buckminster.” 

“His boss called here?”

“Well, more than his boss. She’s been a good friend to us. Her husband too.”

“Daddy doesn’t talk about her that way.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes a person doesn’t know what they’ve got until times get tough. His friend Floyd was talking too.” 

“He’s never said anything about him to me. Daddy has a friend?”

“He sure does.” 

Even though he wanted to stay and listen in the worse way -- stay and even try to figure out what Jack was saying -- that part of the dream ended, and another one started up. 

The doctor from across the street came through big double doors, knocked Ennis down to the floor, and took out the biggest needle he’d ever seen. The man pushed it into his arm, and fuck it burned. The doctor sneered at him and said _Faggot!_

There was something in Ennis that reared up with a truckload of mad. He wanted to say _What call do you have, saying such things to me? I’m not really different from you, I’m just ... just ...._ No explanation that a man would be convinced by came to him. He was just with Jack, and that didn’t say enough to other folks who didn’t know Jack or know him. They had never walked in their boots. 

_Homo!_ the doctor called him. Flat on his back on the floor staring up at him, Ennis wanted to punch his face in, and he almost did, but then the doctor turned into the principal of the school the girls went to. Mrs. Emerson. _You’ll never see your girls again,_ she said, and she whapped him over the head with her yardstick. _Pervert._

He got so scared that his tongue was thick in his mouth, not able to imagine his life without his little ones. Finally he thought of what to say and managed to get out that Junior would come see him anyway, and they’d go to Taos like Lureen and buy gifts for all the people who wanted to kill him for being with Jack. But that didn’t hold any weight with this old woman; she shook her gray head. 

_Not on your life, Mister Del Mar,_ Mrs. Emerson said. _Count on it, you’ll never see Jack again._

 _No!_ He struggled to get up and wring her neck, but all he could do was sit up. _I’ll see him!_

_No, you won’t!_

_Yes, I will! See, over there, that’s him! He’s there!_

The principal turned around. _Where?_

There, there he was. Jack was close, so close that he could touch him, sitting on the side of the bed that Ennis was stretched out on, looking down on him. 

“Ennis?”

Was .... Was it really Jack? Ennis couldn’t take his gaze off him. He was afraid Jack would disappear.

“There you are again,” Jack said. “How much of you is here this time?” 

Ennis wanted to ask the same thing, but no words came to him. Nothing new there. Jack looked like hell, with puffy, dark circles under his eyes that told there hadn’t been much sleeping going on, but worse was that one side of his face was painted black-and-blue. It looked like he’d fallen off his horse onto rocks. Worry danced in Ennis’s thoughts as he wondered what had happened. Maybe Jack wasn’t real, cause he’d never looked like this before.

Jack looked around, and then his fingers were stroking through Ennis’s hair. It felt better than fine. Ennis sighed and let go of his concerns. Only a fool would give in to his wonderings when Jack was touching him. The touching was almost enough to make him forget his painful weariness, better than a long soak in a hot bath.

“Hey, don’t go away so soon.”

He opened his eyes again. He didn’t know why they’d closed when he could spend a week of Sundays resting his sight on his man, tired eyes, bruises, and all. “You ... a dream?”

Jack frowned, and then he smoothed that away. “You asked me that this morning.”

“What?”

Jack leaned closer. “I said, you asked me that this morning.”

This morning? He didn’t remember. “Don’t ... think so.”

“I’m as real tonight as I was then. Listen, I don’t know how much you’re remembering of what I say, but don’t worry, you’re going to be all right. Okay?”

It didn’t matter much. “Okay.”

“You know Junior’s here, don’t you? But she’s down the hall talking to Jenny on the phone, now that her classes for the day are over.” His mouth twisted. “Junior needs to be away from me, I think. Listen, try to stay awake until she gets back. She’s got to go home tomorrow, and she wants to talk to you bad.” 

He couldn’t wrap his mind around that, considering Junior was a baby in the hospital. Or maybe she was in school. It didn’t bother him. Over and over Jack stroked him, fingertips on his forehead, over his ear, through his hair, not saying anything out loud for a time, but sure speaking in other ways. Ennis thought on saying something to make Jack smile, like he’d give Jack a year to stop doing what he was doing, but just opening his mouth again seemed more than he could do. He tried, he really did try to stay, but something else was calling him that he wasn’t strong enough to stand against. Back he went to sleep, there in that strange bed with Jack next to him. 

All sorts of people began to visit him, not something he expected considering he’d been living alone for more years than he could count. All of them were women: what did he want with women? But he couldn’t get them to leave. They woke him up to ask him dumb questions. _Would you like another blanket? Can you hear me? Are you comfortable?_ Sometimes they pulled back the sheet and looked down at his private parts, the worst thing for them to see his nakedness. _You’re doing well, Mister Del Mar, but let me check this for a moment. We don’t want you having any problems here._ One woman came so often he thought maybe she lived close by; she was a wicked one, causing him more pain than he already had by pushing down on his arms and his legs, his fingers and even his toes. He wanted to kick at her but found he couldn’t. He wanted to push her away even though she said, _Excellent, Mister Del Mar! We’re going to have you sitting up in no time._ She didn’t have a right to touch him. None of them did, cause he only wanted Jack to touch him. That’s why he’d .... 

That’s why he’d moved in with Jack back in Amarillo. And that’s why they’d moved together to Eagle Nest, to get that new start, where they could touch each other all the time and not only up in the mountains. Live with each other. He remembered that real clear. 

_Good morning, Mister Del Mar. It’s a brand new day, beautiful outside. Let me open these curtains. All right now, I need to get your vitals before your visitors arrive. I must say, even though I can’t approve, they’ve been faithful. He’s been, that is. Four days now for that man. I don’t understand it .... It’s not God’s way._

Nobody understood him and Jack, did they? 

_Heavenly Father, I pray that your child Mister Del Mar sees the error of his ways. Let him acknowledge your guiding hand for the roles of men and women in praising you. Let him reform his life so that he can be touched by the light of your grace and enter forever into your everlasting kingdom. In Jesus name I pray. Amen._

Where was he? Shit, not with the holy-rollers and Alma. 

“Do you have your plane ticket?”

“It’s in my purse. I wish you didn’t have to drive me to the airport. I could’ve taken a bus.” 

Relief swept through him. That wasn’t Alma, that was Junior, his oldest. She sure sounded grown up. Since when was she taking buses? She shouldn’t. They jounced a man all over the place so his bones came apart, sort of like how his were feeling now.

“I’m not sure they have buses that go there, and besides it would’ve taken you forever. You would’ve had to leave an hour ago.” 

Wait a minute. Wait .... Junior was here, really here? Christ! What the hell was Junior doing in New Mexico? How come she was with Jack? She wasn’t supposed to meet Jack, at least not yet, not until .... Until ....

“If only Daddy would talk to me.”

“He hasn’t said much.”

“You’re the only one who’s heard him, except for that one time he said your name to Doctor Rutherford. Are you sure you’re not imagining?”

Ennis didn’t like that tone. There wasn’t any call for her to doubt what Jack had said. Of course he’d talked to Jack. He remembered .... What did he remember? Oh, yeah, they’d been up above the ranch. He’d been surprised to see Jack there. It seemed odd, him riding Jigger in the afternoon, but then a storm had come up and they’d had to get back where it was safer.

“I’m sure I’m not imagining, Junior. He really has talked to me.”

“Why should he talk with you and not me? I’m his daughter. You’re just .... I’m sorry. But this isn’t easy.”

“I know.”

“I thought I was okay with ... you know. But now I’m here, and ....”

“I thought you were okay with us together too. Your daddy even showed you my picture, remember you told me that? And we’ve talked on the phone. I thought we reached an understanding.”

“I did too.” 

“You’ve got to know he loves you.” 

“Of course I know that. I’ve been trying to get used to him living away from the rest of us, but now I’m gonna have to leave soon and not be here for him when he really needs me.”

“But you -- ”

“I want to help him. And I want him to talk, more than just saying _Jack,_ which is all I’ve heard him say. Shouldn’t he be saying more? I’m real worried about that.”

“Nurse Harrison said lots of patients take time to talk, and you know your daddy’s always been one to keep his thoughts to himself.”

“Not with you. I can’t believe all he’s told you.” The sound of a chair scraping against the floor came to him. “This is all gonna cost a lot of money.”

“He’s got health insurance through the Buckminsters, their ranch.” 

“But that doesn’t cover everything. I know that much. How is he going to be able to pay for all that’s left?” 

“Don’t worry, it’ll work out.”

“But how? Daddy was real generous a while back. He sent me a big check to help with me going to school, and one to Jenny. I know he can’t -- ”

“Junior, there’s two of us now.” 

“What?” 

“I’ve got savings. Plus my ex-wife bought out the house from me when we got divorced. That money’s just sitting there, because your daddy wouldn’t .... Well, anyway, I’ll make sure your daddy gets the best of care. Money won’t stand in the way of him getting better.” 

“You’d do that for him?”

“Yeah, I would. I will.”

Jack was there. Ennis could hear him. He was so close it was almost like they were in the same room, yet so far away that maybe Jack was in Texas and Ennis was still in Wyoming. No, goddamn it! He’d already moved heaven and earth so it wasn’t like that anymore, and fuckit, they weren’t gonna stay separate like this. He tried to say that, to make it real, but an awful taste came into his mouth, and for a while he thought for sure he would throw up. The world turned around and around, sickening him, but he was more sick with longing than anything else, and he hadn’t been called stubborn all his life for no reason at all. So he forced the throw-up down the way he always had and then tackled the task of lifting eyelids that weighed more than a horse did. Took him fucking forever. If he’d had a horse, maybe it’d gone faster, traveling this distance, but there wasn’t one around, just him, walking in the long way.

There ... there ... there .... White on white on white ....

Ennis closed his eyes quick as he could, cause his head pounded like somebody had hit him with a hammer. Jesus! Even through his eyes squeezed shut, the light coming in through the window stabbed at him.

Was that the sound of his own breathing? Yeah, it was, in time with him taking in air, but it sounded far away even so. And there was a machine making noise, but not nearby. He licked his lips; they were so sore, maybe somebody had tap-danced on them all night long. 

Ennis opened his eyes again, cautiously this time. The hard colors blurred together, but after a couple blinks he could make sense of what he saw. He was laying in a hospital bed. That figured; he must have been in some bad accident, the way he was throbbing everywhere, how he didn’t want to move for fear it’d get worse. There was sunlight coming in through a window that had blue curtains on it, and then a wooden cabinet thing in the corner. An empty chair was drawn up close to the side of the bed. 

It wasn’t easy, but he had to see what else was in this room. With effort that shamed him, he rolled his head against the pillow, and though that sent streaks of ouch through his sore neck, he found what he’d been looking for. Finally, there he really was. Jack was sitting on his left side, the same side that he slept on in their bed. He was sitting in a chair real straight, not natural for him, his left arm held awkwardly in his lap. He looked sad. That wasn’t right, not when the sight of him sent the best kind of jolt through Ennis. That was when none of his aching mattered anymore. Of a sudden he was set back on solid ground when for a long time he’d been ... well, someplace else. He didn’t really know where.

Jack let out a long breath. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, showing he was one weary man. 

“Hey, bud,” Ennis said. His voice came out all rusty, deep with a rumble. 

Jack froze, and then his arm came down, showing his eyes, surprised and cautious. 

“Ennis?”

To Ennis’s shame, tears sprang up in his eyes, like some girl. But he had enough man in him still that he wouldn’t let them fall, even though seeing Jack made him feel like bawling. He couldn’t let any of that show, so he came out with, “Don’t ... don’t see anybody else here in this bed.” 

“Christ,” Jack seemed to whisper. Ennis almost didn’t catch it, but he saw it form on Jack’s lips. “You really here? All the way here?”

He blinked and breathed some more, until he could say, “Think so.”

It was all with him now, sights and feelings and sounds that he’d lost back where they belonged. He remembered that Jack was grieving over the way Bobby had acted, and that old man O’Hara had taken Fancy away, and that Jack sure had liked the recliner he’d got for his birthday. He remembered how Jack kept pushing him to do stuff he wasn’t ready for and might not ever be ready for, and how Jack still talked on the phone to the coach, and how he was so dumb at times that he couldn’t see that other folks couldn’t know about him and Ennis or there’d be big trouble. 

Other things were in Ennis’s mind too, though not so clear, something about Samson, and about Floyd. And the calendar that he kept on their refrigerator back home .... A chill shook him as it got bigger and bigger, the blank spaces rushing toward him so there wasn’t anything else but the emptiness, nothing left of his life at all, just his trembling hand making X’s ....

“Ennis?

Jack was leaning over him, one hand anchored next to his pillow, and Ennis gasped with relief to see him. His eyes ranged all over Jack Fucking Twist’s face, hungry for the sight of him. Even the gray in his moustache looked the best, even the black-and-blue marks and the angry cut with stitches.

“Hey there, dumbass,” Jack said tenderly. A smile lit up his face, pushing away the blankness and filling up every part of Ennis Del Mar.

“Shithead,” he managed to get out. 

Whatever the hell had happened to him had left him with bad times in his head. Jack had been gone, and he’d grieved, he remembered that now, for years that had stretched longer than forever. The ache had been worse than if every tooth had been pulled out of his mouth, worse than how he was feeling right now, even though it had been of the heart and not the body. That ache hadn’t ever healed, and he’d gone on and on, carrying regrets and guilt and the memory of Jack.

But ... but that didn’t make sense anymore, did it? Jack was right here. He was smiling down on Ennis in that Jack-way that nobody else had, looking at him like there wasn’t any better person to look on in the whole world. That was how Ennis was feeling too, cause he remembered that way Jack had of tugging on his ear when he was trying to hold in a laugh, and how that man had been everlasting patient over the long years and was patient still, and how ... how he felt on Ennis. How Ennis felt on him. 

What was in Jack’s eyes: all the best things. There wasn’t any single word for something that complicated and that good. 

Jack brushed his knuckles over Ennis’s cheek real light, as if he knew he needed to be careful to not make Ennis feel worse. Then he said something that Ennis couldn’t hear, but he wanted everything of Jack that he could get right then, so he asked “What?”

“Sorry, I keep forgetting to speak up. I said, I’m real glad you’re back.” 

“Me too.” Ennis couldn’t say how much. 

“I’ve been worried about you,” Jack admitted. Ennis watched him swallow down the sum of those fears. “But I guess I shouldn’t have been, because you’re a tough old buzzard.” 

“I ain’t that tough. Floyd’s tough.”

“If you say so. But I’d put money on you.” 

“Don’t go throwing your money away, we need it.”

Jack smiled and let out a little _huff_ like half a chuckle, and there wasn’t much better place to be, having Jack Twist smiling over him, everything put right, everything made whole, cause ... well, cause here they were. 

Ennis took a breath, and the air was fresh going in his mouth and down his throat, like it was the first breath in a new world. Yeah. Okay. 

Something made Jack straighten and send a glance behind him. He turned back to Ennis and asked, “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Was there something wrong with his hearing?

“That was Junior in the bathroom. We were about to leave for the airport, because she’s got to go back to school. We’ve already pushed leaving as far as we can.” 

Junior. He did remember he’d heard her voice, but it’d been like somebody calling to him from way across Riverton’s main street. Movement behind Jack pulled Ennis’s eyes that way. He looked across an empty bed to where a door was opening. Jack said, “Junior? Your daddy’s awake. And he’s really awake this time, aren’t you, Ennis?”

“Guess I am.”

“Daddy!” 

Junior came hurrying over, red hair flying and such a look of glad to her. Right up to the edge of the bed she came. She yanked on some sort of rail-thing that was against the edge of the mattress, and down it went. “Hey, there,” Jack said, “wait a minute, be careful!” 

But Junior didn’t listen. She threw herself down on Ennis, catching his left shoulder with her elbow and giving him a pain so sharp that it felt like his whole arm was gonna fall off; it damn near made him groan out loud. 

“Junior, let go of him, you’re hurting him!”

“It’s okay,” he ground out, cause here was his daughter, her cheek pressed against his, hugging him like he would slip away from her if she didn’t hold on tight. He could put up with the hurting for her. His little girl smelled like a summer rose and splashed him with tears like summer rain. Against his neck, she cried like a child.

“Daddy, Daddy! You’re awake!”

Why was she putting up all this fuss? It wasn’t like his calm, steady Junior. Jack saying he’d been worried, Junior acting like he’d been on death’s door, coming all the way from Wyoming to see him .... Surely there wasn’t any call for her to be carrying on. Hating how he shook and was so fucking weak, he raised his hand to rest it on the back of her head. He almost jumped out of his skin when something came trailing along with it, some tube that was stuck into his skin .... He stared at it for a second and then put it from his sight by pressing his hand against Junior’s hair. 

“Now there,” he said, wanting to say something to stop her tears but wanting to push her away too. “There ain’t no need for this.”

“Oh, Daddy, you just don’t know.”

Yeah, he was getting that message, and maybe he didn’t want to know, huh? He tried to look down his body to see if maybe they weren’t telling him something real bad, like the doctors had hacked off his leg or something, but Junior was in the way and he couldn’t see. So instead he moved his legs, or tried to. It seemed to him they were both there, weren’t they? Ennis raised his eyes to Jack standing back, looking at the two of them. Jack wasn’t smiling any more.

“Dry your tears, baby girl,” Ennis told Junior.

It seemed she didn’t want to, but she finally drew back enough to where he could see the tear marks on her face, with both her hands still clutching at him. “You do know I’m here, don’t you?” she asked. 

“What?” he asked, cause she talked too low for him to catch it. He wanted to put his finger in his ear and shake it around, so he’d hear things more clear. 

“I said, you know I’m here, right?”

“Sure I do.” He wished she’d let go of him; it might not hurt so bad. 

“I’ve been here since Sunday.”

“I doubt he knows what day this is. You’d better tell him,” Jack said. 

“It’s Tuesday afternoon, Daddy, late. I’ve been here three days waiting on you to really wake up!”

The hell? “Tuesday?”

“You’ve been asleep a long time.” 

Figuring the number of days wasn’t something he could do right then, too much coming at him at one time and him not up to running races right then. What day had it been when him and Jack had talked on their horses before the storm had chased them downslope? That was the last thing he remembered that he felt for sure was in the real world. But he guessed maybe that was why Junior was all worked up. It wasn’t a good thing to see her red-rimmed eyes and know they were cause of him. 

“Jenny would never forgive me if I didn’t tell you she’s real worried about you and wants you to get better fast. And mama says so too.” 

Just the thought of Alma sending her sympathy made his stomach turn over. He didn’t want her even thinking of him this weak. “No, your mama don’t.”

“Yes, she really does,” Junior insisted, finally drawing away and wiping at her cheeks with the flat of her hand. “Oh, Daddy, I can’t believe I’ve got to leave now! I kept trying to talk to you whenever you had your eyes open, but it never seemed you heard me.” 

He’d had his eyes open but not known she was there? Jesus, this was a bad dream, one thing after another, tubes in his arms, days he didn’t know anything about, bulls with big hooves stomping through his head so it felt fit to explode. 

“Sorry, little girl,” he got out, cause it seemed the right thing to say. Must have given her a real bad turn, seeing him like this.

Junior sniffled and smiled sweetly at the same time, what seemed to come to women easy. “Not little anymore. I flew on a plane the first time to come see you. And I’m flying back now.”

It was bad enough Jack went zooming off into the sky, but Junior too? “You be careful.”

She bent her pretty head to press a kiss on his fingers, the ones sticking out from the bandage around his left arm. His heart about busted out of his chest. Ah, Junior. Even though she’d hurt him, she didn’t know that, and he sure had the best daughter. 

“Junior, we’ve got to get going, or the plane’ll take off without you.” 

Fire flashed in her eyes; she didn’t like Jack reminding her of that. Ennis figured his waking was bad timing, but if Jack said they had to leave, that must be so. Ennis hated to see her go.

“You do what the doctors and nurses tell you to do, hear?” she said. “I want you to get well real fast.” She turned away, sniffling as if she was ashamed of all the commotion she’d made. Jack took her place, putting on his second-best hat that he didn’t wear much as he came close. 

“You okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Ennis lied.

Jack knew him too well and could see through him on any cloudy day. “Because if you’re not okay, they’ve got stuff here to make you feel better. All you’ve got to do is ask for it.”

In front of his daughter? No way. “Huh.” 

“You know, I’m real glad you woke up all the way this time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get more sleep while I’m gone.” 

“The doctor said you needed all the sleep you could get,” Junior put in. She pulled a tissue from her big straw handbag and blew her nose. 

“I’ve been sleeping enough. I want to get up out of here.” 

He already knew that wasn’t likely. Getting up meant moving, and Junior jostling him had proved already that was one bad idea. He tried anyway, pushing with one arm to lift him maybe an inch from the pillow -- all he could do -- when Jack pressed on him, real gently, to keep him down. 

“Whoa there. You’re not going anyplace.” 

A kitten could’ve moved against the hold Jack had on him, but Ennis went back with it. “Like hell,” he grumbled, though he was glad he wasn’t the one doing the airport driving. Or even the walking across the room. “How long you gonna be gone?”

Making a face like it wasn’t easy for him to get it done, Jack pulled up the rail on the side of the bed. Ennis wanted to argue about that, cause he wasn’t a baby, but he didn’t. He was grateful for beds right then.

“I’ll be about an hour. And you stay put, you stubborn shithea -- ” Jack cut his eyes over to Junior and then tried to cover up by saying, “Don’t be dumb. Take it easy while I’m gone.” 

Ennis tried to frown, but it was too much to get done. All his strength had washed out of him like water pouring over a cliff. He could feel the tug of exhaustion on his eyelids, and a stab of fear too, cause he didn’t want to get lost again wherever he’d been these past days. 

“You drive careful,” he told Jack, but his lips weren’t cooperating, and his words came out like he’d had too much liquor. “That’s my daughter you’ve got with you.” 

“Since when have you had to worry about me driving? I’ll take care of Junior.”

With her coat on, Junior came back to him, all ready to leave. Ennis wanted to say that she shouldn’t grab him again, but he couldn’t find a way to do that fast enough. She leaned over the rail, banging against the bed as she did and making him wince. But she didn’t see that cause she was busy planting a kiss on his cheek, saying, “I’m so glad you’re doing better, Daddy. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Jack stood back while she walked past him, got to the door, said, “Bye, Daddy,” and disappeared out into the hall. “I won’t be gone long, friend,” Jack said, and he turned to follow her.

Ennis watched his back for a second or two, trying to fight off a wave of bad feeling at both of them leaving. If he wasn’t a baby to be falling out of bed, how come he didn’t want to be left alone? “Jack?” he called. Fuck, he sounded like a pansy-ass, weak.

Jack turned back to him at the doorway. “Yeah?”

It was Jack here, nobody else. “You say they got stuff here?”

Jack took a step back to him. “You want more pain medication? They put it in your IV tube. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Yeah, that might not be bad.”

“I’ll go tell the nurse at the station.” 

Jack went to do that, but Ennis stopped him. “Don’t go yet. What ....” He’d have nightmares for sure if he didn’t know, but even so, he almost didn’t ask. “What happened to me?”

Jack took off his hat and got a serious look. “You got hit by lightning. That’s why you have those burns.”

It was almost like it happened again right there. He hitched his shoulders as if he could get away from it now, days after it had happened, and he shouldn’t have done that. His bones and his muscles weren’t in any shape to be doing anything but staying still.

Jack drew up to the foot of the empty bed next to his. “Up behind Buckminster’s ranch, remember? On Friday afternoon, when you were schooling Delilah.”

Lightning. Fucking lightning, what he’d dealt with his whole life on ranches all over Wyoming. He’d seen steers struck down by it burned to black carcasses. The stink of them came to him right then, and it was one hell of a bad thought to imagine he’d been burned black the same way, maybe with some of his raw insides laid bare by the force of the electricity zapping through him. He glanced down at where he had a white bandage over half of his chest, and farther down, he could feel something more along his waist and side. Is that what he looked like under there, and why he was laid so low that he needed to ask for medicine?

“Fuck.” He couldn’t even remember it happening. Made him feel real weird, like he didn’t know his own body, or didn’t know whether this one here, covered up mostly by the white hospital blanket, even belonged to him. 

“Damn, I shouldn’t have told you that right now.” Jack came all the way back, moving fast but angling himself sort of stiffly over the rail. 

“Goddamnit, Jack,” Ennis said cause he didn’t know what else to say, cause he was hurting and fucking worried, and it was dumb that he’d called Jack back even to start with. But he was glad Jack was here. Maybe he was acting like some girl, but thinking about what might be wrong with him that he didn’t even know yet, that would make any strong man shake.

“Hey, friend, it’s all right.” Jack rested his hand across Ennis’s forehead, and suddenly he realized he had some sort of band-aid up there too. Was there any part of him that was normal and hadn’t been changed?

“Shhhh, shhhh.” Jack pushed back Ennis’s hair, yeah, he could feel that as he looked close into Jack’s blue eyes, that he knew were sending him a message to calm down. 

“But -- ”

“You’re going to be okay,” Jack said, talking slowly and even, seeming to be taking care in forming each word. “You hear me? You just woke up, so things aren’t clear to you right now, but the important thing is you did wake up. I’ve been waiting for you, Ennis, you’ve got to know.” 

“Was looking for you,” Ennis told him, hating the memories that weren’t true but that felt true. “You were gone, and I ....” He hated it more when he clutched at Jack’s sleeve. That wasn’t him, that wasn’t Ennis Del Mar who did that.

“No. I wasn’t gone. I’ve been with you this whole time.” Jack took Ennis’s face between his hands. With them so close, Ennis saw a lot. Not just that Junior had waited three days for him to wake up, but that Jack had too, probably longer, with stuff that Ennis had no clue of weighing on him. 

“Listen to me. Nothing matters except you’re back,” Jack said fiercely.

And then Jack kissed him, not hard but soft, bringing their lips together and keeping them pressed. Ennis did his best to kiss back, cause it would have been wrong not to go with what was so right, what was natural. This was what he needed before Jack left with Junior, to take with him wherever he was gonna go when he fell asleep again. Something clicked inside of him, solid and satisfying, like he’d got in all the firewood he needed for the winter or, better, was tired after traveling but was finally home where he could rest. Jack’s sweet lips lingering on his told that there really were two of them in this, and not Ennis stuck here alone in a hospital bed.

“Mister Twist, aren’t we going to -- Oh!” 

Jack jerked away. Ennis saw his oldest daughter in the doorway, turned white by the sight of her daddy being kissed by another man, and everything came to a stop. The three of them stayed like statues, not knowing what to do or say, and Ennis wanted to get out of there, go anyplace else but where he was. If he’d been fit to move, he would have stormed past Jack, past Junior, and hid somewhere .... Fuck! Fuck! Why’d Jack .... Why’d Jack have to ....

Junior’s eyes were as big as horseshoes even as she sent her gaze down to her toes. “I, uh, I thought .... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ....” 

Jack swallowing could be heard in the next county. “No, it’s okay.” 

Okay? Okay? What was Jack .... Junior shouldn’t have seen them. Jack had no right .... Junior had no right .... Oh, hell, he didn’t know anything.

The comfort he’d found for just that little time drained away. Life was shit, and it would have been better if he’d never woke up at all. Ennis closed his eyes. Jack was saying, “Come on now, we’d best be getting along. Ennis, you try to sleep, and don’t you worry about anything.”

Then Ennis was alone. He felt dark inside, broken up, wishing he’d never had to hear that sound in his daughter’s voice. She must be disgusted with her daddy. 

But what could he do about it? Not one fucking thing. He’d been living in New Mexico with Jack the past months, and nothing could change that, like nothing could change that Jack’d just had to kiss him, just had to do that with Junior right outside waiting on him, likely to come back. 

Ennis took in air, a breath not so fresh or new as it had been before. Guess he really was back in the real world, wasn’t he? Where sons disappointed their fathers and daughters maybe couldn’t take him and Jack close up, and where asshole Jack still didn’t have it figured that they needed to keep how things were between them quiet. Jack wasn’t careful, and he needed to be. They both did, because Ennis wanted what he had with Jack to keep going, to keep getting better, so they’d have more of the good feeling that’d been growing between them since they’d come back from Childress.

That feeling: it was so alive in his memory when so many other things weren’t. Him and Jack, the real way, damn good.... And now Junior, seeing them the way she had. It wasn’t right. Damn bad.

He lay there for a good long time, letting misery in body and soul take him over, but then a nurse showed up. She chattered stuff that he didn’t listen to. When she drew out a needle and pumped something into his IV line, though, he watched her do it. 

“You should feel better almost right away, Mister Del Mar.”

Almost before she finished he felt it, the body insisting on having its way and pulling him down. He didn’t fight it cause the pain was fading as if that medicine was washing his aches out to sea, leaving him alone on a sandy shoreline. It wasn’t a bad thing. Not bad at all to look up and see Samson standing before him as if he’d been waiting. His nostrils flared as he snorted, telling that he was eager to be off. Ennis knew they had to travel; he had the strong feeling that even though Jack would be in that hospital room when he woke again, he still had places he needed to go.

And then Ennis was up on Samson, settling into the saddle where he belonged. He gave the horse heel and off they went, riding and riding under the nighttime sky, still looking. 

*****  



	9. Far Away in Santa Fe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL AO3 READERS, PLEASE NOTE:   
> There will be a five week break coming soon. I will post chapter ten next week, on September 18, 2013, and then chapter eleven won't be posted until October 30. I will be back! I expect the novel to be completed sometime around Christmas.

All through Tuesday afternoon and evening Ennis kept waking up and falling asleep, waking up and falling asleep. It aggravated him something fierce since he wanted to stay aware. It was hard on him, each time before he opened his eyes, those few, endless seconds when his old dream world was the real one, and Jack was gone. 

But the light of the hospital room where he was trapped showed the truth, that Jack was there, and right after the fear Ennis was washed clean by relief. Jack was usually someplace close, and this time when Ennis looked he was sitting in a chair by the bed watching nighttime TV and scratching over his ear, looking ordinary, looking like the man Ennis liked to see across their kitchen table. Ennis watched him for a while, trying to push back the ghosts of bad times. Some were real and some weren’t, and it took him a while to sort one out from the other. It was true that Jack had left him, that Jack had taken up with donkey-dong, and that Jack had been so dumb as to kiss him when Junior was there to see it. All that hurt him bad. But it wasn’t true that Jack had been killed somehow, leaving Ennis alone to grieve, knowing he’d done Jack wrong, and that was more important than anything else. He could let everything else go if that wasn’t so.

It could be that he made some sound right then that could be heard even over the dumb show up on the screen, cause Jack looked over at him and smiled. They didn’t even talk this time, just looked, and that was okay with him. Even that much was like being handed a gift. Ennis fell back to sleep reminding himself of what was and what wasn’t, and that he was fucking lucky that he’d taken that trip to Amarillo and told Jack they needed to make his dreams a done deal.

*****

After a lifetime of night, it gave him a jolt to open his eyes to clear morning and find he was alone. There wasn’t any Jack, no Junior for sure, and not even one of those nurses who’d kept bothering him. Just him in this big, high boat of a bed.

But his head wasn’t rocking on misty waters like it’d been before, and everything he saw -- those damn rails up on each side of him, the big cabinet against the wall standing like some sort of guard down by his feet, the strips of sunlight fighting their way around the curtain -- everything he saw was different, more real, with sharp edges. He guessed he hadn’t been as awake the day before as he’d thought. 

His chest felt like stampeded cattle had run over it, and he ached pretty much all over. But not so bad as the day before. He looked toward the door, hopeful, but there wasn’t anybody he knew coming through it, grinning and saying that he was gonna be fine real soon, gonna go home to his horses who were missing Ennis. 

Somebody had cranked up the top of the bed so he wasn’t laying flat, and probably that same somebody had pulled a white sheet and blanket over him all the way to his neck, wrapping him like some sort of mummy. Ennis took the edge of the sheet between his fingers, kind of surprised at how it wasn’t easy to get his left arm to cooperate cause it was all wrapped up. There was a memory teasing him of a yellow-haired gal telling him things in the middle of the night, like maybe what was wrong with him, but damn if he could recall for sure. 

He pushed the coverings down past his waist, feeling better right away, except ... what the hell did they have him wearing? He hadn’t even noticed the day before that he even had clothes on. Couldn’t believe he hadn’t, cause now his skin crawled to take it in. 

It was some sort of nightgown thing. He rubbed where it draped over his stomach, feeling the thin cotton of it, and looked at what seemed to be faded blue flowers all over it. 

To think that Junior had seen her dad looking like this. No wonder she hadn’t acted so good when him and Jack had kissed. To see her dad tricked out like some woman must have made them acting foolish even worse for her. She must have thought he was some sort of ... some sort of ... not a real man.

Ennis felt his cheeks get hot. His clothes had to be around here somewhere. He couldn’t let anybody see him like this, not even the nurses. Couldn’t let Jack think less of him to be putting up with this shit. 

Feeling like a fool, Ennis reached to pull the damn nightgown up, thinking to jerk it off over his head, but he didn’t get near that far. Thinking he could do something and doing it were two different things. He couldn’t even come close to sitting up in bed. He didn’t have any strength at all. All he managed was to curl his fingers into the fucking flowers and pull the cloth up toward his waist, pushing the blanket farther down at the same time. Jesus, he wasn’t wearing underwear of any kind, he was naked with ....

He stared down at himself, and chills ran down his arms. What ... what ....

There was a ... there was a tube stuck right into his dick, snaking over the side of the bed, carrying his piss away. 

Christalmighty! He had to .... He had to get it off, take it away, pull it out, out, out! Ennis clawed at the sheet under him, his breathing coming in gasps and hurting his chest. Why’d they do this to him? He wasn’t that sick. He reached down, aiming to get rid of the thing, but ... but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He rubbed his hands flat on his thighs, wanting to yank that tube out but ... how did a person do that in a safe way? 

Now that he knew it was there, it felt like the trunk of a redwood tree had been pushed up inside him. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, what made him ready to upchuck all over himself, this thing in his privates. What would this do to him, to his dick? What ... what happened to men that had this done to them? Could they ... would they ... were they ever normal again? Would he be able to get it up? Could him and Jack ever ....

Groaning, he let his head fall back against the pillow, cause he couldn’t keep it strained up anyway. This thing must have been in him a while, since he couldn’t remember getting up to go piss, and he knew he’d been here for days. He couldn’t remember the name of it either, but he’d heard it talked of a couple times. Other ranch workers had made fun of old men who’d had to piss through a tube or told of some worry over a brother or a cousin laid low in the hospital with bad things going on. If this thing ruined a man’s dick, something would have been said about it, right? But Ennis had never paid such talk any mind at all, cause what did it have to do with him, anyway? Maybe he hadn’t been listening ....

“Good morning, Mister Del Mar.”

Damn it to hell! Some older nurse was breezing in like she owned the place, and he was laying with the nightgown-thing pulled up and his legs spread. She must think he was playing with himself or something. Ennis tried to make himself decent, but his hands got tangled in the bedclothes and he couldn’t get anything to cooperate. To his everlasting shame, he got himself covered just before she came up next to him. 

“How are you doing today?” she asked with more of a frown than a smile on her wrinkled face, and if he could have jumped out the window he would have. Guess she didn’t favor walking in on a near-naked man even if she was a nurse. Anyway, what did she think he was gonna say? That he didn’t care what had been done to him and he was fine? And he sure couldn’t ask her the questions he needed answers to, about his dick, so he just grunted. It was better with the sheet up cause he couldn’t see himself. Maybe that’s why it had been pulled up in the first place, to keep the patient from seeing the hospital-work. He settled in under the covering, trying not to move, to not feel any of what was down there.

Time crawled while he laid there like a just-born foal. After the nurse quit asking him the usual questions and left, Ennis decided to do some testing. His fingers, including the ones sticking out of the wrappings, they seemed to be okay, though one of his knuckles was scabbed over. His arms moved all right even if his left wrist was sore when he bent it and his right one had the IV in it. Then he felt at the bandage that was over his shoulder and hissed as soon as he pressed down. He went rigid as a board to get away from the pain. Damn, that hurt! 

He couldn’t get away from the throbbing though he sure wished he could. After some while it wasn’t so awful and died down to a steady ache, and he more or less relaxed his spine against the bed again. He could tell he had two more spots farther down that were bandaged, but no way was he gonna even touch them now. 

Even him breathing seemed to move his dick so he could feel the tube in him. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it wasn’t good either. He tried to take in air not too deeply and in regular breaths, in, out, concentrating on that, and after a while he could feel himself drifting ....

_Good morning to you, sleepyhead._

Ah, it was Jack, come again from wherever he’d spent the night. Ennis felt the brush of lips against his temple, almost like they’d woke up at the same time in their own house. That was a good thought. He held on to that, remembering some daybreaks that had been real fine. Peaceful, flowing like a mountain stream that was quiet and pure clean. He’d never in his whole life had mornings like that, not even up on Brokeback or out in the wilderness later, until he’d taken up with Jack permanently. Then he remembered that Jack shouldn’t kiss him any way at all, cause they needed to be careful all the time.

_I guess I shouldn’t worry that you’re sleeping like this. The nurse said you’d talked to her a while ago and were doing good._

Ennis tried to open his eyes. He really wasn’t asleep, only resting, but laying there listening to Jack was pretty much all he needed. That way, there weren’t any questions with bad answers, no pinpricks in him or redwoods either, no worries about his dick, and he could forget about the kisses. He sure didn’t want to talk about any nurses.

_I’ll just sit over here, then._

He spent some time thinking on Jack sitting nearby. It wasn’t like he needed a babysitter, but a man was entitled to some company now and then, wasn’t he? Sometimes he could hear Jack. Once there was a sneeze followed by a sort of groan, and then a _Goddamnit._ Yeah, that was Jack. Another time he must have gone into the bathroom, cause the door banged shut and then opened. Ennis wished he could hear him breathing when he came back, but he guessed Jack was a quiet breather. It would be better if he was closer, so Ennis could hear. Even so, this felt good, like floating on the surface of a lake under a sky that looked out and out into forever. Him and Jack had done that a time or two during the few trips they’d taken in the summertime, skinny-dipping in the water under only heaven’s gaze. It was the same thing now, him spread out, weighing nothing at all, floating, knowing he wouldn’t go under cause Jack wasn’t far. 

Even without looking, Ennis saw something over along the shoreline. Oh, their horses. Jack’s old buckskin and Samson, nodding their heads in the fresh breeze, waiting, waiting ....

Ennis opened up his eyes. Maybe he’d been asleep for a while after all. 

The curtains were pulled open so sunlight came in, lighting up the room, but Ennis didn’t much care about anything it showed except for who else was here. There was Jack, sitting in a chair over on Ennis’s left side, reading a magazine. Jack looked worlds better than he had the day before, like he’d had good dreams that night, though his face was still colored up. He was wearing navy blue Dockers with a sharp crease to them and a red-plaid long-sleeved shirt. Ennis had always liked the way Jack looked with his dark hair so definite, his blue eyes that couldn’t be missed, his way of dressing too. It was almost like he was more real than anybody else Ennis knew.

Jack noticed right away that Ennis was aware and put the magazine aside. He shifted forward in the chair, though keeping his back sort of stiff, smiled, and said, “How’re you feeling today?”

Ennis wasn’t in the habit of making lists of how he felt to share with anybody, not even Jack, so he wasn’t tempted to say anything about his aches and pains. But right away he thought of asking if Jack knew anything about the tube stuck up in him. That had consequences for Jack too, but Ennis couldn’t find it in himself to get those words out. So instead he asked, “They ever gonna feed me, you think?”

“Why, you hungry?”

“What?”

“I said, are you hungry? It’s way past breakfast time.”

“No, I ain’t hungry. What’ve I got to be hungry for? Not doing any work, just laying here. I was just wondering.” Ennis lifted his other shoulder, the one not paining him, and then wished he hadn’t. This staying in bed crap wasn’t so easy. 

“I don’t know that they think you can eat yet.”

“Shit,” Ennis said. He was tempted to go back to sleep and felt like he could do that without even trying. But it seemed small to not stay awake for a while, Jack being here and all. He forced his eyes to stay open and looked around the room. “What the hell? What’s that? And that too?”

“You mean those flowers there?”

“What’d you say?”

“I said -- ”

But Ennis interrupted him. “How come you’re talking so low?”

Jack got up and came closer. “It’s not me, it’s you.” 

“Like hell.”

Jack grinned down at him. “I’ll have to tell Betty Jo that you’re doing lots better today, good enough to be cursing and complaining and being cranky. Your eardrums are busted, that’s why you can’t hear good. At least, one of them is. This one.” He reached to pull on Ennis’s right earlobe. “The other one’s not so bad, the doctor says.” 

Ennis tried not to put on a face that showed how fear grew inside him fast as a mushroom cloud. “They ... they gonna get better?” he asked. Is that what he had ahead of him, not being able to hear, a hurt shoulder that maybe wouldn’t heal, his dick not getting hard ....

“Oh, yeah, your ears will get better. You’re already way better than they thought you might be. The nurse says you’ll be hearing normally in a week or so, and in the meantime we just have to talk loud so you can hear.”

Well, that was one thing okay, anyway. But .... “Talk loud? You mean any asshole passing out in the hall can hear what you’re saying?” Ennis remembered the day before, how him and Jack had got emotional and said some things to each other from the heart.

“Hey, don’t worry.” Jack patted his arm up where the bandage ended and the sleeve of the nightgown-thing started. “I’m not talking that loud. But you’ve got watch how you talk, because it seems folks who can’t hear themselves tend to shout.”

“Was I doing that?”

“A little, but you’re good now. Listen, you don’t need to worry about anything except getting some strength back. Getting back on your feet again.”

“I’m worried about those flowers over there.” 

Ennis turned his head on the pillow toward the bedstand on the right side of the bed, where two clumps of flowers stood in glass vases. There were yellows and oranges, mainly, with some green plants sticking up. 

“Those’re from Betty Jo and Floyd.”

“Betty Jo and who?”

“From Floyd. Floyd.” 

“Oh, Floyd. Why’d they do that? 

“You know why. Because you’re sick in the hospital, and that’s what people do to show they’re thinking of you.” 

“Not for a man they don’t.”

Jack blew out air. “Yes they do, even for men. When L.D. was in the hospital for his gallbladder surgery, his room was filled with flowers.” Jack went over to where they were and picked up a card that was under one vase. “This came with Betty Jo’s. It says ‘Get well fast. We miss you here at the ranch.’ And it’s signed with all of their names, even Tag and Davey.” 

Ennis turned away from the things and closed his eyes. Flowers. At least they weren’t pink roses, something for a girl to carry in church on her wedding day. “Don’t suppose you’d take them away.” 

“Suppose they come to see you and their gift’s not here?” 

“They ain’t gonna come all the way to Taos. They’ve got things to do.”

“I’ve got news for you, you’re not in Taos. This here is Santa Fe.” 

Ennis snapped his eyes open. “It is?” 

Jack looked real serious of a sudden. “You were in a bad way, Ennis. That little hospital in Taos isn’t set up to take care of somebody who .... Anyway, they brought you here pretty much straightaway on Saturday. You’re in Saint Vincent Hospital, on the east side of town.” 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know more, but that was a kid’s thinking, not a man’s. “What ... what was so bad that they had to bring me here?”

Jack ran his hand through his hair. “You think being hit by lightning isn’t enough?”

Ennis looked away, but there wasn’t anything in this room worth resting his eyes on except Jack, so back he went to him. “I guess.” 

“Damned right. At least we had a place like this to take you to.”

“Suppose.” 

“This is the best place for you right now. They’ve got everything you need to get you on your feet again. Get you home.”

Home. He’d been thinking on it while he was listening to Jack after he’d first come in, and then home had felt as close as Jack was. But now it was far away. Jigger and the pinto, their half-assed TV with the antenna, the forest where sometimes they saw deer. He was stuck in Santa Fe, a whole world away from where he needed to be. If he’d been in Taos, at least that would have been close, a drive over highway 64 and there he’d be. But Santa Fe, that had to be two hours and more from their little house. Even farther to the feedlot where Jack should be spending his day.

Ennis cleared his throat. “Hey. Uh, guess you’re gonna have to leave soon. Work and all.” 

A hard look crossed Jack’s face. Maybe he was frustrated to think of how Ennis was holding him back from that good job of his. “I’ll be doing some stuff from the motel by phone, and Corliss can go fuck himself if he needs more from me.” 

“Oh yeah? You’re staying a while?”

“Yeah.”

Ennis figured he should say Jack should go back home and to the feedlot, but he couldn’t get that out of his mouth either. Instead he said, “Good.”

Jack looked down at him again and saw things, in that way Jack did, cause he said, “You’re looking tired. Why not see if you can get some more sleep?”

Ennis doubted he would have been able to stay awake much longer anyway. He closed his eyes. And then sniffed. There wasn’t a flower smell that came to him, so he guessed that was okay. Betty Jo and Floyd? How’d they get to know where he was or what had happened to him? There was a lot he didn’t know, but he wasn’t gonna find out right then. 

When Ennis came back to himself again, that woman who’d starred in his in-and-out imaginings was there, the one who’d tortured him. She was talking to Jack over by the other bed, with Jack looking real worried, nothing like how he’d been cheerful when they’d talked before. He had lines in his forehead, and he kept tugging on the end of his moustache, nodding and nodding to whatever it was this gal had to say to him, hanging on everything. Finally he looked over at Ennis and saw he was awake, and him and the woman broke off and came over to the bed. 

“Hello, Mister Del Mar,” she boomed. She sounded like cannons going off, the way she talked. “I’m Sandra Westheimer, your physical therapist.” She gave him a big smile that wasn’t anything like the face she’d had on when she was talking to Jack. “We haven’t met before, but I’ve been providing care for you while you were unconscious.”

“I ain’t deaf,” Ennis said, reaching up to stick a finger in his ear. Jack talked too low, and this gal talked too loud. She looked like a balloon wearing a purple hospital shirt, or maybe Humpty Dumpty from the girls’ picture book when they’d been little. 

He heard Jack snort out a laugh, and Sandra gave a satisfied nod. “Of course you aren’t,” she agreed, and this time it wasn’t like she was trying to mash him down into the mattress with how loud she was. “What would you say to sitting up in bed for a while this afternoon?”

That was the best thing he’d heard since he’d come aware, but he wasn’t so sure he could do it. Ennis gnawed on his lip. “Sure.” 

“Since Mister Twist is here, I’ll ask him for a little help instead of calling in an orderly. Now, first thing, let me check you over.” 

She did her thing with a stethoscope and feeling for his heartbeat at his wrist, and then with Jack watching from the foot of the bed, she took his right arm as if she had the right to do so. Ennis guessed she did. She bent it at the elbow with gentle fingers and asked how it felt. Though Ennis feared the IV being in there would make him hurt, it didn’t really, and he told her that. 

That must have been the right answer, cause she kept moving his joints and rubbing now and then on his skin, _to get your blood flowing in your muscles again,_ she said. When she was done with the arms, she pulled down the sheet without any sign of being shy, though how did she know whether that nightgown was scrunched up by his waist showing off everything or pulled down where it was decent? 

His legs looked like sticks bleached dry and crackly by the sun, an old man’s legs, and he frowned down on them. He’d been so wrought up by the sight of the tube up his dick that he hadn’t even noticed that his whole right thigh from knee on up to where the nightgown was covering him was way worse than Jack’s face, with deep bruising, traces of red pooled near the skin. It looked like the bruise got worse and worse the higher it went, maybe all the way up to his hip. 

Jack stood up on his toes to get a good look and sucked in breath. “Holy Hannah,” Ennis thought he heard him say. Or maybe he was commenting on that tube that was there clear as could be, running out from under the nightgown and across the mattress down to the side. What’d it do there, drip his piss into a bucket?

Like she was touching something that might break, Sandra reached to lay her fingers over his skin there, and Ennis tried to pull away from her. There wasn’t any place to go, though, and she made contact with the purple. “Is this painful?” she wanted to know, and she pressed down.

Ennis flinched all over, expecting it to hurt like his shoulder did, but nothing much happened. Maybe a little soreness, nothing to talk about. He eased his tense muscles, hoping she hadn’t noticed him doing that and that Jack hadn’t either. “Nope,” he said, real surprised. He looked again to make sure she really was touching him. 

Sandra said, “We’ll keep the hospital gown where it is, but I’m going to reach up a little higher on your thigh, okay?” Before he could tell her she damn well better not, she put her hand under the nightgown, way up so if she’d moved a couple inches over she’d be grabbing his dick. “Is this painful?” she wanted to know.

Yeah, it was real painful forcing himself to let her do this to him. But he shook his head no, it didn’t hurt. 

“I expected that. You’ve lost sensation there for now. You’ll possibly be a bit restricted in your movement because of the trauma here, but even so I think you’ll be able to sit up today.”

She thought so? Thought so? Ennis swallowed hard and glanced up at Jack. Having Jack look on through all this wasn’t good. Wasn’t right, him seeing Ennis all broke up. Much as he wanted Jack there, another part of him wished Jack would go away. “Guess the lightning ....” He stopped and tried again, cause his voice wasn’t coming out strong. The second time was better. “Guess the lightning got me good.” 

Jack nodded and said, “Yeah,” but Sandra talked over him.

“Oh, this isn’t from the lightning. Hasn’t Doctor Rutherford been in to talk to you?”

“Don’t think so,” Ennis said cautiously. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about all this with anybody. 

“How about one of the nurses, has she gone through your situation with you?”

“Uh ....”

Jack jumped in with, “There’s no need. We can wait.”

“No, there’s no reason Mister Del Mar can’t have some basic information about lightning strikes. I’m no physician, but I can tell you a little. For one thing, you are very lucky to have escaped without significant damage other than that one nasty burn you’ve got. It does happen, thank the Lord, and we’re always glad to see it. We had a man and his wife in here last month like you, they were hit when they were hiking. He had burns somewhat more extensive than yours, and for some reason her hearing became acute instead of suppressed, but that was about it for them.”

Sandra looked down on him with a bright smile. “So maybe we’re on a lucky streak, this hospital, because we hate to see how lightning can affect a person. You should count your lucky stars you’re talking, remembering well, and don’t seem to have cognitive difficulties, though of course we’ll test you for that. But this thigh problem is something I can speak about because it’s my area, and I’ll be treating you for it for the next several days. It’s from when the horse fell on you, not from the lightning. You have nerve compression and muscle damage in your femoral triangle area.” 

Ennis heard what she’d said, but it was only the last part he cared about. “Horse? A horse fell on -- You mean Delilah?” 

Sandra looked over at Jack, who seemed like he wished he was somewhere else. 

“Uh, yeah.” Jack licked his lips. “Delilah fell on you. She got hit first by the lightning, at least that’s what we think, anyway. You remember? You’d got off her and were trying to get to .... Anyway, she reared up and came down on you.” 

Ennis felt sick to his stomach, but he had to ask. “How’s she .... How’s she ....”

Jack grabbed hold of the end of the bed and said fiercely, “You just be glad that it wasn’t you that was hit first. Then you’d be the one laying dead and I’d be ... I’d be ... be stuck with your horses. It doesn’t matter what happened to Delilah, you hear me?”

“Sure it does,” he argued back. “She’s ....” He searched for something to say that wouldn’t have anything to do with how bad he felt. Delilah had been a good horse, and he’d trained her the best he could. Guess it hadn’t been good enough, though. He supposed he had only himself to blame for being stuck in the hospital, cause he wasn’t a good enough horse trainer to get her gentled for something as ordinary as a thunderstorm. “She’s Rocky’s, and I should have taken better care of -- ”

“You and your horses, always thinking of them first and everybody else later. Let me tell you what -- ”

“I was the one sold her to him, and you know -- ”

“Would you quit thinking of -- ”

“Mister Twist, I really don’t think now is the time for this discussion.” Sandra was trying to hide a smile and not doing a good job. Ennis couldn’t figure what she was happy about. “We’re trying to get the patient to sit up, remember?”

Jack backed down fast, looking guilty. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“There will be plenty of time for you to talk about all that happened and for the two of you to decide how you feel about it, but for now I want to concentrate on moving forward with the therapy plan. Are you ready, Mister Del Mar?”

She made it sound like some big deal, and maybe she was right. Besides, Ennis didn’t want to think on Delilah anymore, his horse cut down, and he didn’t want to fight with Jack either. “Sure.”

“First we’ll get this rail down, and then we’ll crank you up a bit more.” Down the rail went, and the top of the bed started moving up, taking him with it. “A little more,” she said, and then it stopped. He wasn’t sitting upright, far from it, but the view was sure different. His shoulder ached even more with the moving, and without thinking on it his hand went up to cover where the bandage was. That didn’t help, though, and he took it away fast. 

“Once we’re through here, I’ll ask the nurse if you can have some more medication for the pain,” Sandra said, like she knew what he was feeling. “But right now I’m going to assist you to sit upright, and I’ll be moving your legs over the side of the bed. Don’t worry, we’ll be supporting you in that position.” 

Ennis panicked. How could he move that much? She must have figured how he felt from the sharp breath he took, cause she said, “Don’t worry, the catheter won’t restrict your movements. Here, I’ll give you some slack so it won’t worry you.” And casual as could be, she reached over him and pulled on the tube as if she didn’t know or care what it was attached to on the one end, and more of the plastic appeared on the bed. It was clear, not yellow-filled, but even so Ennis felt like the whole world was watching him and laughing, or the worst thing, that Jack must feel sorry for him, and any respect he had for Ennis Edward Del Mar was flushed down the toilet. 

“Come on now,” Sandra said. “This is your first step on the road to recovery. You want to walk again, don’t you?”

He looked over at her. He wanted to do a lot of things again, like everything he’d ever done before, including walking and riding and being a man in all ways. A sudden hatred for her and for everything and everybody in this fuckinggodawful place exploded like a firecracker in his chest. 

He didn’t have any time to show it, though, cause this Sandra, nobody was stopping her. “Now, here we go. Do what you can to push yourself up to a sitting position, but don’t put much pressure on your wrist.”

Then how was he supposed to .... It didn’t matter anyway. Sandra was strong as a bull, and her arm around his back pushed him up like he was a baby. He gasped out loud. His body felt like a rusty truck being cranked into action, after sitting in a junkyard for twenty years. 

“Good, good, that’s the way. Can you sit up on your own if I take .... No, I think we’d better not. Mister Twist, go around to the other side of the bed, please, and support Mister Del Mar the way I’m doing. I’ll get his legs around.”

Then it was Jack Twist who was holding Ennis upright like he was a newborn colt with real problems, that maybe should be put down instead of being allowed to live. Jack’s hands on him felt so much better than Sandra touching him, cause Jack’s hands at least belonged, but that didn’t change that Ennis wanted him gone, gone as far as he could go to let Ennis face the worst that life had to offer alone. There was good reason for animals to go off by themselves when they were hurt bad. But he wasn’t allowed that, nope. Jack slid onto the mattress right there with him to get a better grip, and maybe he would have been able to accept that except for this woman right there. 

Sandra flicked the sheet off his feet and pushed his knees together with hands on each side of him. “Now I’m going to pull your legs over the side of the bed ....”

You’d think getting him to sit up was about the same as planning a trip to the moon, it was that complicated.

“ ... so you’re going to pivot on your bottom until you’re facing me. Try to help me do that as much as you can. Mister Twist, you hold on so he doesn’t fall forward or backward.”

He tried, he really did try to move, cause he was a man still, at least he thought he was. His left leg, sure, it scooted over right away, but his banged up one wasn’t listening to anything he told it to do. He grunted, tried again, and stared down at it, but nothing happened. This Sandra-gal, though, she sure knew what she was doing. She must have done this a hundred times before, cause without him helping, a couple seconds later he was where she wanted him to be, sitting up with his legs dangling. 

“Excellent.” She beamed at him, and Jack gave a little whoop behind him. 

Sure, let them get all excited, but Ennis could feel how the effort of sitting up like this was making him sweat, and then a chill raced through him. He swayed cause the room was spinning around him no matter how he blinked to make it settle down, and if he wasn’t careful he was gonna puke. 

“Just breathe,” Sandra said.

Hell, did she think he wasn’t trying? He was this close to toppling forward, but Jack was holding onto him from behind with an arm wrapped between his bandages, and Sandra was standing in front of him supporting him too. If he fell, it’d be right into her, and he didn’t want his nose stuck in between those torpedo tits of hers, no way. 

So he fought to stay where he was, between Sandra and Jack, between furnace-hot and ice-cold, between the floor and the bed, and he managed it. 

He managed it when Sandra told Jack to let him go. He sure didn’t want that to happen, but a second later Jack’s support was gone. He managed it when she asked him how he was feeling and he lied and grunted out _okay_ even though his leg hadn’t moved. He managed it for what felt like a year or two but wasn’t even five minutes by the clock. 

Sandra made him suffer some more while he sat there, asking him to move this and that, though she stayed away from that fucking leg of his. When he’d had enough, way more than enough and couldn’t sit up any more, he was about to tell her that when she said it was time to get back into bed. By then he didn’t even care that Jack was there to see him without any strength. He was grateful instead that Sandra stood back and let Jack settle him on the pillow. Finally relaxing against it, letting go of how hard he’d had to work sitting up, was a sudden relief so strong it felt like coming. He sighed. 

“You want the sheet, bud?” 

That was Jack hovering over him like a mother hen, with the sheet in his hand ready to pull up over him. Though Jack should know better, he sure did want it to cover up as much of himself as he could, so nobody could see him. Jack seemed to know what the answer was even though he didn’t say anything, and he got it over Ennis right away. 

Even though he fought it -- cause who got worn out by sitting up in bed, huh? -- he still couldn’t help but give in to his tiredness and close his eyelids. 

“When do you think he can get out of this hospital gown?”

“Soon.”

“It’s got to be bothering him.”

“I didn’t notice that it did. I’m not sure he’s aware of it yet.”

“I’ve got some pajamas I could bring over from the motel we could put him in. What do you say to that?”

“That would be all right with me, but you should ask the nurses too. But now that I think of it, maybe you should wait on that. I’ll have him to the gym tomorrow, and it will be a lot easier to maneuver with the catheter in the gown. So wait on the PJs.”

“The gym?”

“It’s where we take patients to try to help them to stand and learn to use their limbs again. With that leg of his, he’s going to need some significant physical therapy. Can I ask you something?”

“I ask you enough questions. Sure.”

“I’ve never treated a ... someone like Mister Del Mar. That I know of, anyway. Someone with someone like you right here too. I was wondering, how long have you two been together?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just curious. You two are like a married couple. The way you interact.”

“That’s right.” 

“What?”

“We live together. I’ve known Ennis since 1963. How else you expect us to act?”

Ennis couldn’t hang on past that so he didn’t hear any more, falling into sleep swift and deep, like that time him and Jack had jumped off the cliff into the river. He’d hit the water and it had stung all over, like to rip the skin off him, but even so he’d come up for air laughing, cause Jack was with him laughing back. 

He wasn’t laughing when he woke up the next time. He was more tired than when he’d fallen asleep, it felt like, and with his body protesting as if he’d put in two weeks shoveling cement for the state. Jack was standing over by the window looking out on a bright afternoon. Ennis wanted to make a sound that would turn him around, maybe say something to Jack, but he didn’t know what that would be. He couldn’t say _I’m real glad you’re here, thanks for not leaving me in this place alone._ That would be pansy-ass, and besides, somebody might hear him. He couldn’t say _I’m scared cause my leg ain’t moving much and I’ve got tubes in me and I can’t hear good and I don’t know what any of it means._ That would be showing how weak he was, and Jack had got an eyeful of that already. He didn’t want to make that worse. He couldn’t say _Why’d you tell that dragon-lady about us?_ That would be starting up their old fight, him looking out for them and their safety against Jack’s stupid believing that things would be all right. 

Would’ve been easier to wake up feeling like shit if he didn’t have to worry about what fire-breathing Sandra thought of them being together. Like an old married couple, she’d said. That didn’t sound good to Ennis; it made him think of the fights him and Alma used to have. At least then he’d been a whole man, able to stand up and go into another room to get away from her, or drive off to the bar if it got real bad. Now look at him. 

This was what it felt like, being in the hospital sick and helpless and with folks knowing his business. Sure, Jack had stuck with him through this, but Ennis had better get used to the idea that he’d be leaving to go back to work soon. No man, not even Jack, was gonna put up with this crap, Ennis not even able to sit up on his own. 

“You’re not looking so good right now. You want me to ask the nurses to put something in your IV?”

He hadn’t even noticed that Jack had turned around and come over to him. “Thought dragon-lady said she’d do that.” 

“Dragon-lady?” Jack’s eyes danced when he said that, and Ennis liked seeing it. “Nah, she didn’t because you fell right to sleep. But I think you need something now. Let me go ask for it.” 

“Wait,” Ennis said, though he hardly knew why. “Wait a while.” 

“All right, but you tell me when you’re ready for it,” Jack said, and he pulled the chair up close to sit down in it. He reached through the bedrail and rested his fingertips against Ennis’s side. “This hurt? I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Ennis looked down at where Jack was pushing the nightgown against his skin. Here was another something Jack shouldn’t be doing, but he didn’t have the heart to say so. Ennis was glad for this touch, and he needed it too, just that small pressing that said _Jack’s here_ satisfying a little something, an itch, though truth to tell there was something needful a lot bigger than that. Maybe this felt the same to Jack as to him, a single drop of normal, of connecting, when he needed the whole ocean. 

“It doesn’t hurt.” It probably wouldn’t hurt to feel those fingers against his hand skin to skin either. He opened his palm against the sheet. Jack saw it and knew what he was saying with it. The Jack-light came up in his eyes, and he slid his hand down so Ennis was able to curl around two fingers. 

This was okay. Nobody could see unless they were looking with binoculars through the window. If somebody came in through the door -- and that happened too much to his mind -- then Jack could pull back with nobody the wiser. It’d just look like the two of them were talking, maybe about baseball or the weather, not anything more.

Ennis rolled his head against the pillow so he could look at Jack more easily, worth the trying cause Jack was looking back at Ennis with a soft smile playing around his lips and thankfulness in his eyes. 

Nobody came to bother them for a couple minutes, some sort of miracle that Ennis was grateful for. Jack turned his hand around so his thumb was free, and he started stroking it against Ennis’s wrist. Didn’t feel that bad. 

“Jack?” Ennis asked after that went on a while. 

“Yeah?” Jack didn’t stop what he was doing, which he probably should, cause Ennis wasn’t any dog that needed stroking and petting. 

“Uh, I was wondering ....” 

“What were you wondering?”

“How’re my horses doing?”

“Last I heard they’re eating up a storm and wishing you were there.”

“Who’s taking care of them?” 

“Floyd is. Matt too, but mainly Floyd. He’s stopping off at night to see to them. I talked to him on Monday. He’s sure a good friend.”

“Yeah, suppose he is. We’re gonna have to pay him for that.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah? Something else you’re wondering?”

Ennis wasn’t sure he should ask, cause he might not like what he heard. “You know how they’ve got this thing stuck up in me?” 

Jack’s smile disappeared in a hurry. “The catheter? Yeah, I know.”

“You don’t have to talk about this loud, okay?”

“I’m not talking loud, don’t worry.” 

“This catheter thing. Do you know if ... I mean, it ain’t gonna ... I might as well jump off a bridge right now if that means I won’t be able to get it up.”

“No, no,” Jack soothed, and he slid his hand fully against Ennis’s, palm against palm, which made it not so easy to come apart anymore if somebody came in cause they closed fingers against each other. “That’s not gonna happen.” 

But did Jack really know? “You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. That’s just for now, since you can’t get out of bed. It’s got something to do with that big bruise you’ve got. Your system needs some time to recover.”

“Cause if you’re not sure, I -- ”

“I heard the doctor say it. Besides, we don’t need to be thinking about things like that right now. We’ll have that again, only not now.”

Ennis squeezed Jack’s fingers, restless, suddenly overwhelmed by deep feeling. “Want to go home, Jack.”

“I know. I want you home too.” 

Ennis sighed. 

“I think I’d better go tell the nurse you need some painkiller, all right?”

Ennis didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either. He guessed Jack figured him talking like this, mush all over the place, was a sure sign he was being pushed by the pain past his ordinary self. He watched Jack go past his bed, past the empty one next to him, then go through the door, turn, and disappear. The nurse took her time about it, but half an hour later he got the medicine, and fifteen minutes after that he felt better. At least his aches went away. 

Two more times that day Sandra took over his room and forced him to sit up. Maybe she thought each time would be easier, and it was true that he sat up ten minutes the second time and twenty the third, but it sure wasn’t easier. It was shameful, how he had no energy each time afterward.

Jack disappeared for a while later in the afternoon, saying he had to make some sales calls on the phone for the feedlot. Ennis guessed that’s what he was doing; what else could it be? He didn’t think Jack knew anybody else in Santa Fe. He tried to sleep while Jack was gone but he couldn’t. 

By the time the five o’clock news came on Jack was back, bringing a box of fried chicken for himself, damn it. Some little gal about Jenny’s age sashayed in a little later with a food tray “for the patient,” she said. Though Ennis was real interested in it, it turned out he couldn’t swallow much, only a little jello and a couple spoonfuls of soup. He spilled as much on himself as he got in his mouth, though he tried not to let it be noticeable. He didn’t want Jack seeing him with a soaked front. Jack was changing TV channels when it was happening, and he seemed to take some time finding what he wanted to watch. Ennis didn’t want to think that was for show, that he needed pity like that. It wasn’t much later that a round-faced nurse came in and ordered Jack out of the room. Jack did what he was told and scooted out like a private in the army. The nurse wrestled Ennis out of the one nightgown-thing and into another, managing to keep the sheet over his private area the whole time. The new one had green stripes to it, so there was no way Jack wouldn’t notice the change had been made. Fuck. Fuck. 

Ennis hated this hospital.

It made him feel better when Jack found the second game of the playoffs between the Tigers and the Royals on TV. Jack got a smile on his face that wouldn’t quit, joked about smuggling some beer into the hospital, and made a fuss about getting Ennis’s hospital bed raised up the best way so he could see the TV screen. It would have been so much better if they’d been watching in their own back room, in their two chairs with Jack’s feet up on his recliner and Ennis’s up on that broken kitchen chair. Ennis was mad all through the first inning thinking about that. Why’d he have to be a lightning rod, anyway? Why couldn’t he be left alone by whoever was throwing fire down from heaven? But Jack had pulled his chair up so it was close to the head of the bed, and it was like they were sitting side by side anyway. After Detroit scored their first run, Jack turned to him and said, “I spent some time fearing we’d never get the chance to do this. When you weren’t waking up.” 

“I’m here, bud,” Ennis said, but he thought about that leg of his and gnawed on his thumbnail. 

It was a good game, one of the best of the season, but Ennis kept nodding off. He blinked himself back to the real world when he heard the phone jangling, remembering in a rush that he was in a hospital and all the bad things he was worried about. Jack picked it up, said “Hello,” listened, and then handed it to Ennis without saying anything more. 

It was Junior, wanting to know how he was doing. He didn’t say much, and she seemed to understand he wanted to keep the call short. Even so, she said _I’m worried about you, Daddy, you sound down._ Yeah, well, she wouldn’t be too cheerful if she was in his shoes, would she? Assuming he ever got to wear shoes again. Then she asked if Jack was still there. 

“Yeah, he is. Why, you want to talk to him?”

Jack turned away from the game and looked at him with raised eyebrows when he said that.

“You mean he’s right there with you in the room?”

Ennis kicked with his good leg at the sheet pooling by his feet. “Sure he is. We’re watching the game.”

“I guess he’ll be leaving soon.”

“Soon as the game’s over, I guess.”

“No, I meant leaving to go back to where he works. He can’t stay at the hospital forever, Daddy.”

“I ain’t planning to either.” 

“I know, and I hope you get better real soon.”

“I gotta go now.”

“All right. I’ll try to call you again tomorrow, but I got a big test and maybe I shouldn’t. If I don’t call you then, I’ll call on Friday.”

“Sure. Bye.”

Even though the American League Tigers were playing a good game, Ennis couldn’t keep himself in the here and now. He dozed in and out, there enough to hear when somebody got a hit or the crowd roared over a good fielding play, but not there enough to hear the whole game or be good company. He jolted awake to hear the score was tied in the middle of the ninth and realized his bed was being lowered down flat. “No,” he said, his words thick, “want to see this.” 

“Sure, sure,” Jack told him. “I want to see it too.”

He listened to one batter, but then the next thing he knew the TV was off and Jack was bending over him. 

“You have a good night,” he said softly, and he kissed the side of Ennis’s head. Strange place for a kiss, and for sure Jack shouldn’t do it. Ennis wanted to ask him who’d won the game, and when he’d be coming back, and if he knew anything about a leg that wouldn’t move much at all, and how long it would be before Jack’s asshole boss Corliss Hamilton made him go back to Cimarron. But nothing came out of his mouth except a breathy puff that he couldn’t hear cause his ears were all clogged up, but he could feel it, the same way he felt the touch of Jack’s lips. 

*****  



	10. No Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: The next chapter, Chapter Eleven, will be posted in five weeks, on October 30, 2013. I’ll be back!

The nurse told him the next morning that it was Thursday and they were expecting rain, like he was some idiot who didn’t know there was a world outside this room he was stuck in. She was there to give him a shave, which he objected to, but he guessed it wouldn’t have been easy to do himself. He felt better with the whiskers off.

Jack didn’t show until after what passed for breakfast in this place, way after nine o’clock. But it hardly mattered when Jack came, cause right after him Sandra swept in like an aircraft carrier set on a mission. 

“Today,” she boomed, “we’re going to get you up on your feet.”

That was good news to Ennis, cause he was ready to try just about anything to lift him out of this bed. Before they’d brought the pasty white stuff they’d expected him to eat, he’d done his best to sit up on his own and couldn’t believe how tough that had been as he fought through the sweats and the swaying. When he finally fell back against the pillow, he groaned, though he hoped nobody had heard him. He’d glared down at his leg, trying to convince himself that it would get better, but he was shivering-fearful inside. He’d thought of rubbing the leg the way Sandra had done, but he didn’t want to touch it, the way his skin looked stretched and shiny, no good. 

So, yeah, if Sandra thought she had a way to make things go again, he was all for it. The faster he could get on his feet, the faster he’d be out of here and back where he belonged, where he didn’t have to worry about who knew and who didn’t know, and he could go about things in his own way. Besides, his job with the Buckminsters wouldn’t wait for him forever. 

“Let’s do it,” Ennis said. “I’m ready.”

“We will do it, but not here,” Sandra said. “I’m going to take you to the gym. Not your typical gym, Mister Del Mar, but you’ll see.”

“Can I come along?” Jack asked, all hopeful like a little kid. 

“Sorry, this will be hard work, and he’ll need to be focused with no distractions. We’ll be performing various forms of therapy and administering a few tests, and that will take a while. Plus I’m sure Mister Del Mar will need to rest afterward. So it doesn’t make much sense for you to wait here. Why don’t you leave and not come back until ... let’s say one o’clock. Or even two.”

Jack didn’t look too pleased. “I helped out yesterday. Maybe there’s something I can do today that -- ”

“Sorry, only patients and therapists allowed. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.”

“I guess I can go get some more calls done at the motel.”

“Is that what you were doing this morning?” Ennis asked.

“Yeah, Corliss is piling it on.”

“You need to go back to work, Jack. You don’t want to take the chance that -- ”

“You’re always worrying about our jobs, but there’s no need. I’m keeping this one.”

“Before you go,” Sandra said, “would you help me get him into a wheelchair?”

“No!” Ennis said right away. But nobody paid any heed to him, especially not to him protesting that he didn’t need any wheelchair, even though he knew he did. What he didn’t say but felt strongly inside was that Jack needed to leave before he saw Ennis in such a thing. 

For sure Jack shouldn’t be helping him slide to his feet from off the bed, with his arm around the back of Ennis’s waist like it wasn’t any big thing that they were touching that way, with his other arm gripping Ennis’s elbow, and Ennis tottering like a summer breeze would blow him over, his weight all on his good side. For sure Jack shouldn’t be the one to turn Ennis around like he couldn’t move on his own, or to lower Ennis down gently into the chair that Sandra had brought up behind his legs. Jack’s face was practically buried in Ennis’s hair while he did that. And for sure Jack shouldn’t see how Ennis’s left leg went up to those support things with no problem, but that Sandra had to hunker down and pick up his right foot, push it and ease it to where it needed to go. 

Worst thing of all, Sandra pulled on a pair of stretchy gloves and then picked up a half-filled plastic bag from the side of the bed -- now he knew where the catheter tube led to. She draped it over the handlebars, or at least that’s what it seemed she was doing behind him. Ennis felt his face get hot, and he ducked his head and stared at his hands in his lap. 

Jack squatted next to him like a father reassuring his kid. Fuck! 

“Good luck,” Jack said. “I’ll see you later.” 

Ennis grunted and didn’t look at him. 

The trip down the hall -- with Sandra pushing him and Jack next to him, walking in that stiff way that he’d had ever since Ennis had woke up, but even so walking like a man -- Ennis thought that trip was the hardest he’d ever took. That feeling lasted only until Sandra pushed him onto the elevator, where there were already some people, and for sure they must be looking at his piss hanging there in that bag. Ennis kept his eyes down and wished he was dead, except that would mean that Jack would go through what he’d gone through, the tearing at his guts and the emptying of his spirit. Long years of the emptiness, with nothing ever big enough to fill up that space. He wouldn’t wish that on anybody, especially not his Jack. 

Him and Sandra got off on the second floor, and Ennis was grateful more than he could imagine that they were alone. He imagined the expression on Jack’s face as they left, cause he hadn’t let himself look. Maybe Jack was hopeful that this time in dragon-lady’s gym would improve things, or maybe he was doubtful. 

Sandra took him through double-doors that opened into a big room with windows all along one side. They opened to a gloomy day and trees with not many leaves left hanging. It wasn’t a gym in any way Ennis understood it, like a high school gym, but there was exercise equipment all over. And here and there was a person dressed like Sandra in a hospital shirt along with a patient, some old man or old woman, or in the corner a man like him only he had but half a leg, all of them trying to get things moving again. 

Ennis shivered. 

“There now,” Sandra said as she brought the wheelchair to a stop and put on the brake. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” 

Guess she had a different view of life than he had. Ennis felt something start to crack inside, and it took everything he had to push it down so the rush of bad feeling didn’t show. That he’d come to this, being pushed around by some woman who pretended to be jolly all the time, while he was all torn up with nothing working. He tried to swallow around the rock in his throat.

“I imagine you thought you’d never even be able to sit up in the wheelchair for all this time,” Sandra went on. “But you did. I knew you would. And you’ll be able to stand here too.” 

She had him stopped against two lengths of wood set around hip high, and it didn’t take any imagination to know that she expected him to get up between them. Ennis figured he’d give it a try. 

*****

He woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, shivering at the same time he was steaming. The memory of his daddy pushing him over a waterfall so he’d crash on the rocks below was clear enough that he wanted to shake the water from his no-good ears. Ennis watched the mostly-closed door. It was possible he’d made some sound, hollered out loud maybe, since usually when Jack shook him awake it was cause of that. But nobody came down the hallway toward his room, though he listened for a good while, fearing some good-hearted nurse would ask what was wrong with him or what dream he’d had.

When he closed his eyes, it wasn’t dark enough in the hospital room for him. Couldn’t be dark enough. He didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want to see. Wished he could dive into a hole out on the prairie and pull it in on top of himself. Let him burrow deep down like the prairie dogs did and breathe in the dusty, musky smell of the earth and nothing else. 

Instead, whenever he drew a breath, the sick-people smell made sure there wasn’t any mistaking that it was a hospital he was in, and likely a hospital where he’d stay for a good long while. When they finally let him out, what would become of him?

In the silence of his room, the silence of his bad ears that couldn’t even hear Jack when he talked normally, Ennis feared to face the truth of things. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, but ....

If Sandra and her contraptions hadn’t caught him, he would have fallen flat on his face when he’d tried to put one foot in front of the other. His right leg was like it wasn’t even attached to his body any more. It was shameful how on both days he’d dragged it behind him as he made those few baby steps, clutching the bars as Sandra was right there behind him, telling him how great he was doing when he knew fucking well that wasn’t so. He hadn’t done any better the second day, and any hopes he’d had pretty much fell to the floor.

When the sun rose today, it would be Saturday. He’d be hauled down to the gym again, his third time. But Sandra had the day off, and it’d be somebody else to see how he’d been laid low, not just Jack and Sandra and that white-haired doctor who’d finally bothered to visit on Thursday afternoon. 

That damn doctor. Wished he hadn’t heard from him. The only good thing about that visit was it seemed Sandra hadn’t let on to the guy about him being with Jack. 

_Jack wasn’t anywhere in sight when Sandra wheeled Ennis back to his room after his first session in the gym, and nothing kept him from sinking into the sleep of a discouraged man. Not even the lunch tray sitting there waiting for him did anything for Ennis. He figured Jack would wake him up when he got there, but it wasn’t Jack he heard a while later._

_“Mister Del Mar? Mister Del Mar, I’m sorry to disturb you.”_

_It was a man’s voice in this hospital where it seemed it was mostly women tending to him. Ennis’s eyes popped open to see an older fellow standing next to his bed, looking down on him._

_“I’m Doctor Rutherford,” he said, and he put out his hand._

_It was about time the man in charge came to talk to him. Ennis struggled to sit up cause he wasn’t gonna talk with a doctor from flat on his back. Once up he took the hand and shook it._

_The doctor got his bed to crank up. He pulled up a chair and looked down at a chart in his lap. “I thought a review of your situation was in order.”_

_Rutherford said that Ennis was having a fine recovery so far, that his cardiac readings were excellent for a man who’d suffered cardiac arrest, his blood tests had all come back negative so he probably didn’t have any disease although of course their precautions would continue, said his burns were healing well and he needed to be sure to tell the nurses any time he needed pain medication, that they would be continuing physical therapy until --_

_But Ennis was still back at the beginning. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you mean, cardiac arrest?”_

_The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at him with pale eyes. “I’m sorry, I should have been in earlier to go over all this with you, but my schedule has been horrendous lately. I am assuming your relatively healthy, outdoor lifestyle has contributed to an excellent recovery after your heart stopped.”_

_That was enough, right there, to make it happen again. “My heart stopped?” His tongue was thick in his mouth._

_The man gave him a peculiar look, like he thought Ennis was simple-minded. “That’s correct. We believe that the coronary symptoms were mainly caused by the trauma of the horse falling on you rather than the lightning. That’s good news for you, as it results in far fewer complications. Straightforward trauma instead of electrical short-circuiting, basically.”_

_Ennis found it tough to breathe. He must have been dead. Close to dead, but he could hardly wrap his mind around that thought. Shouldn’t he feel different than he did, if that had happened? He felt small inside, a tight bundle of fear, which made no sense since it’d been days ago, but still ...._

_“When ... when did it happen?”_

_“I believe at the scene of the accident. Hasn’t anyone told you?”_

_No, Jack Fucking Twist hadn’t told him._

_“Don’t worry,” the doctor said. “I don’t anticipate restrictions on your behavior as a result of the coronary episode. What I am more concerned about is the nerve damage to your femoral triangle area. Your leg.”_

_At least for now, Ennis had to let go of what Jack had and hadn’t told him, and why he’d kept the real news to himself, and the unbelievable knowing that for a while there’d been no life in him. This doctor didn’t show up every day. He set himself to talk and managed to push out, “The leg’s not moving much.”_

_“That will improve with physical rehabilitation.”_

_“How much should it get better?” Ennis didn’t want sugar-coating._

_“That’s difficult to say. It’s entirely possible that you will recover a significant portion of your mobility and strength.”_

_Ennis wanted to ask if he’d be able to work again, to walk, to ride, to be a man in the bedroom, but he couldn’t. Significant portion? What did that really mean? “That physical therapist, she had me exercising today. I couldn’t do much.”_

_“You will improve. We’ll arrange for home-based therapy so that you can continue to regain your -- ”_

_“What?” This just got worse. “At home?”_

_Rutherford stood up, pushing the chair back with a scrape against the floor. “Mister Del Mar, you were seriously injured. Your road to recovery will take some time.”_

_He stared at the doctor, but he was really fighting against the idea of somebody coming out to their house, invading what him and Jack had. “How long will it take?”_

_“To start, I’ll arrange a four week course for you at home; you may need longer, or some additional issues may arise that we’ll need to address. But a therapist will visit three times a week, plus of course we’ll expect you to pursue the exercises and routines assigned to you every other day. But if you are diligent, as I said, there is a good chance of significant recovery. Perhaps complete recovery.”_

_“But not for sure.”_

_Rutherford shrugged and pulled a pen out of the pocket of his hospital coat. He wrote on the board; it looked like he made a check mark. “There isn’t much that’s sure in this world. You are one very fortunate man, Mister Del Mar. Some lightning strike victims have trouble with memory, they struggle with depression, or they experience severe neurological symptoms. You appear to have escaped that.”_

_“The worst I’ve got,” Ennis said, looking down at his legs, “is mainly from my horse.”_

_“That’s right.”_

_The doctor spent a couple more minutes with him, but it seemed he wanted to get away soon, and Ennis didn’t do anything to keep him. Rutherford left with another handshake. At least that was good, but nothing else was. Fuck on anybody coming to where they lived; he wasn’t gonna let that happen. He didn’t want anybody barging into the place him and Jack shared. That house was theirs. But ... four weeks, maybe more, and with no real promise that he’d be back to normal at the end. Maybe he never would ...._

_He groaned and turned his face away from the door. Why hadn’t Jack told him? He should have. Ennis had a right to know what had happened to him._

Like a man with too much to think about in the middle of the night, Ennis pulled both his arms over his head and rested them on the pillow, bandage and IV and all. At least he could do that. 

Jack hadn’t came back to the hospital that first therapy day until the middle of the afternoon, when he’d charged into the room with his hair looking like he’d been shoving his hands through it and with his lips pressed together in aggravation. He’d pulled a yellow writing pad and a calculator out of a plastic store bag and cursed out loud at Corliss, saying that his boss had him doing more stuff in Santa Fe than if he was at his desk. Then he’d apologized about not getting back sooner and asked Ennis how the time in the gym had gone. 

He hadn’t told Jack much, cause Jack didn’t need to understand how little good had happened there. It just wasn’t something Jack needed to know.

*****

Ennis wasn’t thinking any more cheerfully in the morning. The gray-headed nurse came in with the rising sun, the same one who’d come on him that first day when he hadn’t been able to cover himself up quickly enough. She was one of the regulars in and out, and today she was putting on one of those robes they wore, tying it behind her back. “Good morning, Mister Del Mar,” she said, like she always did. She looked all put-out, like he was asking her for something special. Saint Vincent’s must be a bad place to have a job, cause most folks here were grumpy.

She pulled gloves from a pocket, put them on, and then did the early-hour routine he was used to now, first looking at the needle in his arm and then doing the piss-switch. She left without saying anything else to him, and he hunched his good shoulder to her. Hoped she had a bad day. 

Before he’d left the night before, Ennis had told Jack to sleep late, cause it was Saturday and he knew Jack liked to do that. But now he wished he hadn’t. As he spooned breakfast into his mouth, he thought maybe Jack wasn’t even really sleeping. Maybe he was taking a walk, cause he’d mentioned how it wasn’t easy being cooped up in this room or the one at the motel. Generally, Jack always seemed to be on the move, one way or the other, always pushing or planning or hopping from one person to another, talking all the time, a salesman’s job the perfect one for him.

Or maybe he really was sleeping, cause he needed it. He’d been dragging on Friday, maybe getting real tired of staying in Santa Fe, and Ennis couldn’t blame him. 

Ennis shoved his bowl to the side. Sandra, who it seemed to him was the only one who had much sense around here, had told him he had to eat to get better. He was trying, but the food tasted like dirt. 

It wasn’t much later when a teenager wearing a pink dress with a white apron over it came breezing into his room, pushing a cart in front of her that was filled with flowers and plants. She looked all proud of herself for caring for the sick people. 

“Hello!” she said, as cheerful as Mister Rogers on the TV his girls had watched when they were little. “Someone is thinking of you.”

He didn’t want more flowers. The ones from Betty Jo and Floyd were getting droopy. The ones sent by Jenny and Junior were okay but still made him want to turn away from knowing that they did that. 

The girl picked up a green plant in a pot: ordinary, nothing much to object to, way better than it might be. She went across the room and put it on the windowsill. 

“Could you read who that’s from?” Jack had forgot to bring his glasses from home, and Ennis couldn’t read much without them. 

She plucked a card that was stuck in the greenery and read: “Get well, Ennis. We are -- ”

“Wait a minute,” he said, though it shamed him to have to. “Gotta talk louder so I can hear.”

“All right, I can do that,” she said, not missing a beat. Now he could hear her better. “It says ‘Get well, Ennis. We are looking forward to those riding lessons. Thinking of you and wishing you a quick recovery. Yours, Janice and Morgan Kirkpatrick.’”

“Now, isn’t that nice,” came from the other side of the room. Jack came up to the bed. 

“Yes, it is,” the flower-girl said in her bright way, and she started to fluff up the leaves of the plant. 

Jack put a paper bag he was carrying down on the floor, and then he took off his hat and dropped it behind him onto the other bed. He didn’t look much better than he had the day before, like the hat and the bag were heavy and he was glad to be quit of their weight, like suddenly there were more cares to carry than before. “Morgan told me he was gonna send you something, but I didn’t think he’d do it.” 

“Morgan knows what happened to me?” What had Jack done, put a sign out on the highway? 

“Yeah. I called him to let him know there wouldn’t be any riding lessons for Janice for a while.” 

“Oh.” He’d forgotten that, like it seemed he’d forgotten other things, or hadn’t been able to find the words to ask about them. Like where Jack was staying. He’d thought of asking a bunch of times but it always slipped away before he said anything. It was strange, the way each morning when he woke up, he thought things looked brighter and more real, when he’d thought the exact same thing the day before. When he stopped thinking that, maybe that would be the day he’d be back to his old self.

“Why should they send me that plant?” he wanted to know. “They’re your friends. It ain’t you stuck in the hospital like this.” 

“They’re nice people, Ennis. Don’t you recognize them when you meet them?”

The girl giggled, and then she went back to her cart. “There’s another one here for you, Mister Del Mar. Let me check which one. Oh, you’re the one who has the roses!”

Ennis watched her pick up a big green vase with what looked to be a full dozen yellow roses spilling out of it. They were full-headed flowers, enough to make either of his girls squeal in that happy way girls had. What the hell?

“They can’t be for me,” he said.

“I think they are.” She checked a list. “You are Ennis Del Mar, aren’t you? These were sent for you.”

“Don’t think they could be.” 

“I’ll read this to see if you recognize the name of the sender.” She took the card out of a little envelope that was sticking out of the roses. 

“‘To Ennis. Hope you enjoy these yellow Texas roses. I thought you’d appreciate them since you’ve walked off with the best rose Texas has to offer. You’d better take care of him.’” The girl squinted. “That’s not right, he must have meant ‘her.’ The rest of it says ‘Say hi to Gorgeous for me. Get well soon. Hugs and kisses, Gary.’” She looked up at Ennis. “Do you know somebody named Gary?”

It was a miracle he didn’t snap off his teeth, he was gritting them together so hard. No way he was gonna say anything. Goddamn idiot coach ....

The girl looked from Ennis to Jack and then back again, waiting for somebody to speak up. “Well? Do I leave these here or not?”

“Take them away,” Jack said, sharp like a knife. “Give them to somebody else.”

“I don’t want them,” Ennis added. 

Flower-girl for sure was confused and didn’t believe they didn’t know this Gary person, but she shrugged, put the flowers back where they’d been, said, “Have a nice day!” and off she went.

As soon as she was out the door, Ennis twisted around in bed to face Jack and let loose. “That dickhead! He’s a jackass! He’s always yanking my chain, and I don’t like it. How come -- ”

Jack was making weary push-down motions with both his hands. “Just calm down now, would you? You know I didn’t have any idea he would -- ”

“I guess you called him the same way you called Morgan. Telling everybody what happened to me when it ain’t none of their -- ”

“What the hell burr got under your saddle today? You must be feeling way better to be hollering about Gary again.” 

It seemed Jack was still treating Ennis like he was a sick man who couldn’t take anything like the truth. Fuck on that. Fuck on it! He wanted to break something but instead pounded his right hand into the mattress. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you see -- ”

“Sure, I see that you ....” Jack caught his temper. Ennis saw him do it, so he didn’t say what he probably wanted to say real bad. But all the muscles of his face were tight when he said, “Look, I’m not getting into this.”

“But why do you always have to have a phone glued to your ear, when you know -- ”

“I called Morgan -- ”

“You already said that.”

“ -- and I called Bobby cause I thought he needed to know what’s going on, and I called Gary too. Gary’s an asshole with anything having to do with you, that’s all there is to it, but I’m not going to let him do this to us, especially today. I’ve got something that I need to tell you about. I have to -- ”

The phone rang.

Ennis glared at it. Jack did too. 

“Let it ring,” Ennis snarled.

Jack made a face and turned half away. “Suppose that’s one of your girls? It probably is.”

The phone went off a third time.

“No, it isn’t. Junior calls at night and Jenny’s off doing her -- ”

“It’s Saturday, everybody’s schedules are off on -- ”

The fourth ring and then the fifth cut through their talk. 

“Oh, go ahead, answer it,” Ennis finally said.

Jack picked up the receiver and handed it immediately to Ennis. He juggled it over to his right hand and put it up to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hello, Daddy? It’s Junior.”

He took a second to calm himself down. There wasn’t any need for Junior to know he’d had a real bad night, that Jack didn’t have any respect left for him, and that he’d come close to having roses smelling up his room. “Hi there, Junior.” His eyes cut over to Jack, who mouthed _Told you_ at him. 

“How’re you doing this morning?” Junior asked. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine. What are you doing calling me this time of day?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I had something I wanted to .... Is Mister Twist there?”

How come she kept asking that? “He’s here.” 

“On a Saturday?” 

Ennis’s eyes settled on Jack sitting in his chair, that damn yellow pad and calculator out on his lap already. Even though he’d told Jack he should leave a couple times over the last few days, he hadn’t. Ennis figured for sure he’d have to go back to work on Monday. That meant Ennis wouldn’t be in this hospital alone until after the weekend, even if his calculator-using company couldn’t keep his mouth shut, with no regard for Ennis’s feelings about talking to the coach. 

He told Junior, “Yeah, even on a Saturday.” 

“Isn’t he ever gonna go back home?” Junior sounded like she had when she was a little girl, maybe eight years old, tired out and a little whiney.

“He will, but not yet.” 

“So when do you think you’ll be getting out of there, Daddy?”

When he could turn cartwheels, maybe, but for sure not until they yanked the tubes out of him. “I don’t know. Nobody’s said.”

“I was talking to mama’s nurse friend. Remember Shirley?” 

“I remember her.”

“She was saying that when you get out of the hospital it’s likely you’ll be still recuperating. You might need some physical therapy and stuff like that, and you might -- ”

She shouldn’t be talking of such stuff. Girls needed to know their daddies were strong and could take good care of them if ever they needed the help. 

“So what?” he asked, and he couldn’t keep that from coming out sort of harsh. 

“Well, I was thinking that you’ll be all alone when you go back to that house you’re renting.”

“What? No I won’t. Jack’ll be -- ” 

“Jack’ll be away during the day. You told me he has a long commute, about an hour each way, so that’s another -- ”

“Forty minutes,” Ennis said, clutching at the tangled-up phone cord. “It ain’t a full hour unless there’s a wreck on the road, like some fool who hit a deer or something. Usually he’s home by -- ”

“But there’ll be all those hours during the day when nobody’ll be with you, nobody to check up on you. Suppose you ... ” Junior had a sudden hitch in her voice that ripped right through Ennis, his little girl really caring about him. “Suppose you fall and can’t get back up, or suppose you fall asleep and need help to wake up again?”

“You’re imagining things, darling. There’s no need for you to worry.”

“I am not imagining things. I want you to come up here to stay with me in Sheridan once you’re out of the hospital.”

“What?” He pressed the phone closer to his ear, wondering if he’d heard her right. She couldn’t mean it. “Honey, that doesn’t make much sense. You’ve got your school lessons and you live in that dorm with -- ”

“I don’t like it all that much here in the dorm,” she said, and he knew that wasn’t the truth even as she said it. “I thought we’d get an apartment near my classes, and I could check on you during the day in between what I’ve got to do and my job. I’d have lunch with you every day and make all your meals to get better on. You could fly up here, and I’d meet you at the airport. I’d take good care of you, Daddy.” 

Ennis tightened his grip on the receiver. He guessed she really did mean it. It could be that he had the best daughter a man could ask for, but she didn’t understand that what she was proposing would be like running straight into the fires of hell for him. He didn’t need the help. He sure didn’t need her help. Between Junior and Jack caring way too much for him, not giving him any credit just because he’d been laid low for a little while, he was gonna be coddled until he didn’t know he was a man anymore. 

“Junior ....” he said, helpless to say anything else without letting his frustration show, knowing it was her loving him that was driving her.

“There’s a whole block of apartments not far and I checked them out yesterday, so I think -- ”

“No,” he said as definite as he could. 

“But, Daddy, I think that Jack can’t give you what you need right out of the hospital, so you should -- ”

“I can’t talk about this right now. I appreciate the offer, Junior, but it ain’t .... I don’t need it.” 

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow. You might change your -- ”

“No,” he said again, stronger this time. “I’ve got to go, you know how busy it is in these places.” He held out the phone, and Jack took it from him to put it back down on the table. 

“Are you okay?” Jack asked. “What did Junior say that -- ”

“Nothing.” 

If he didn’t get out of this room right now, he was gonna be fit for no place but the loony bin. Ennis grabbed the piss tube to get some slack, and then he yanked on the bedrail to get it down. He wasn’t dumb, he knew the trick of it. Then he turned himself around so his legs were dangling over the side of the bed. 

“What’re you doing?” Jack asked with alarm, and he reached to put his work-stuff up on the rolling table that still held what was left of Ennis’s breakfast. 

But he wasn’t fast enough, cause Ennis pushed himself upright. He did it all on his own. Nothing had felt this good for a while: his own legs under him, no supports, no bars, nothing but him the way he’d been made and born. He had a moment where he even thought of trying to take a step without any support, but right then his leg caved on him, sending him toppling over to his right side. 

Of course, Jack was there to catch him, though he made a sort of groaning noise when he did. His arms went around Ennis’s shoulders and then quickly under his arms so Ennis’s nose was buried against Jack’s neck as he steadied himself on his good leg. Maybe he really was headed for where the crazies were kept, cause he wanted to bite a big chunk out of Jack with his teeth, savage like an animal, and at the same time he wouldn’t have minded pressing a kiss there, claiming what was his: his mixed-up feelings about needing Jack and being mad at Jack, all of it right there. He stayed like that, tight up against his man, for a bunch of heartbeats, smelling soap and Jack-skin, despair sweeping over him cause he didn’t know what part of this he’d ever have back again. Jack moved a hand around his back, spreading his fingers against the thin cloth of the gown so Ennis could almost feel him skin to skin, pulling him closer with a sigh. Ennis closed his eyes ....

“Dear Lord in heaven, you must stop this! Mister Del Mar!” 

Him and Jack jerked away from each other at the same time, and Ennis almost did fall to the floor this time, but Jack was there, shoving him back on the bed against the pillow again. Ennis’s face burned red as he jerked the sheet over himself, he could feel it, a million times bad with the nurse looking on. He wanted to kill Jack, kill her, kill himself, feelings familiar from those days when he’d lived alone in his shack fighting against everything he really was. Goddamn the whole fucking world! All he’d done was try to stand on his own, and Jack had been there when he fell .... Couldn’t .... Couldn’t they .... Shit on nurses who came up on a man unexpected!

He threw her an angry glance. It was the same nurse who’d been in the morning-gown, sour-pussed in the mouth, with red lipstick that made her look like a vampire. She was standing at the foot of the empty bed as if she didn’t want to get one step closer to either one of them. 

“We really cannot allow any of that in the hospital,” she said, worse than any schoolteacher Ennis had ever had, cause they were two grown men, not kids. 

“We weren’t -- ” fool Jack started to say, as if anything would convince this woman that they weren’t tools of the devil. He looked wild-eyed, hot-eyed. 

“It’s just as well I caught you at that,” she went on, not letting Jack talk, “because I’ve come to let you know that we’ll be admitting another patient shortly who will be sharing this room.”

Ennis stared down at his fingers cause he didn’t know what else to do. There wasn’t any place to put his anger and his shame.

“What’s that got to do with us?” Jack asked, standing up to her like she was the schoolyard bully. 

Mrs. Vampire drew herself up straight. “Surely the two of you know how we’ve been trying to keep the second bed in this room vacant? Because of the body fluids contamination warning and the extra precautions we’ve put in force because of it.”

Ennis jerked his head up. What was all this about? She was pointing with a quivering-mad finger toward a sign that had always been on the outside of the door, that was propped open so he could see it. It was a red triangle. Didn’t all hospital doors have that sign on them? 

The nurse turned from staring down Jack to aiming her eyes at Ennis. “But we’re full up and don’t have a choice but to move Mister Martinez here. All things considered, as a good Christian woman I felt that I had a duty to explain the truth of things. So I’ve told the family and the patient that even though you are homosexual, we do not believe you have contracted this horrible AIDS disease and are not contagious. They are naturally concerned, but they’ve consented to use this space.”

There was a mad rush of sound in Ennis’s ears, as if he’d been pushed out into the raging wind of a hurricane. This woman knew him and Jack were together. She knew. She’d known even before she’d seen them up against each other a minute ago, and that sign over there announced it to anybody walking by. 

To anybody walking by. 

“I came here to ask that you keep the contact between you and Mister Martinez, and his family, to a minimum. It’s a suggestion I’m making personally, in the interests of keeping the peace. For instance, you might want to draw the curtains between the beds and keep them drawn. Needless to say,” her lips thinned so even her lipstick disappeared, “there should be no repetition of what I just witnessed.” 

Jack was standing with his right arm around his waist, stiff as a board. “Sure,” he said. “Anything you say.”

Finally Ennis separated out some words from the roaring inside him. “What does that sign really mean?” 

“Hasn’t anybody told you?” She looked happy to be the one. “Possible bodily fluid contamination, in your case from this AIDS disease from the bathhouses of San Francisco and New York. Doctor Rutherford is determined that it will not gain a foothold in our community, which is why we are strictly following the directives from the CDC issued almost two years ago, and going a step further. Until we know more about transmission, we’re taking every precaution we can with every homosexual patient. That’s why we always gown up and wear gloves when we might come in contact with your IV and your bodily wastes.”

The nurse’s eyes went to where Jack had set his hat on the other bed, and she stepped over to pick it up. “Mister Martinez will be here within the hour. I would ask the two of you to restrain yourselves.” Then she handed the hat to Jack, turned around, and showed them her back as she left. 

Ennis slumped so low his spine was half on the mattress, half on the pillow, and he covered his eyes with his hand.

So this was what it meant. What it boiled down to, him being queer. Jack getting him to admit that, Jack pushing Ennis to the edge of his possibilities and Ennis finally breaking down, saying, sure, I’ll take up house with you: from that came the sign on his door that he’d not even known what it meant, cause Jack hadn’t told him and he hadn’t been smart enough to ask.

Outside his window, a dumptruck must be picking up the hospital trash, from all the racket being made out there. 

Ennis unloosed his eyes to where Jack was still standing unnaturally straight, like a toy soldier. “Where’re you staying?” Ennis asked. 

“What?” Jack blinked, and his face was pale white. “I ... I’m at the La Quinta two blocks south.”

Ennis pushed himself upright again, sitting on his own in the bed. “Did you and Junior get along while she was here, or did you fight?”

Jack took a step closer, twisting his hat in his hands. “I .... She didn’t like me. She couldn’t deal with me too good, but we didn’t fight.” 

“What else don’t I know that you need to tell me?” His eyes swept across the room. “There some secret code I don’t know about, maybe telling where I live, or what I used to do for a living, or announcing to the whole world how many times you’ve fucked me?”

There were a couple seconds as still as a hot day with no wind, while Jack took that in. Then, in a rush, Jack threw his hat across the bed. It _thunked_ against the glass of the window before it fell down to the floor. “Jesus Christ! It wasn’t my fault!” 

Ennis wasn’t of any mind to listen to him. “Then how come that sign’s there and everybody in this hospital knows I’m shacking up with you? I don’t have a license to fuck Jack Twist in my wallet, and it’s not tattooed on my ass, last I looked. If you didn’t tell them, who did?” 

“It wasn’t like that,” Jack said, desperately. 

“Now they all think I’ve got this AIDS thing.”

“No, they don’t,” Jack insisted. “They tested you, Ennis, at least as much of a test as they’ve got for it now, and it’s good news that they think you don’t have it, isn’t it? You heard her say she told that family you’re fine, and the rest is only a precaution.”

The thought that the old vampire had been talking about him like that to strangers, people he didn’t know but people who’d soon be coming into this room looking at him, knowing how different he was, how he did perverted things that regular men, real men didn’t do .... Rage rose up in Ennis, tossing him this way and that so he didn’t have any control over how he felt. He just felt. 

“Junior wants me to go stay with her once I’m out of here. Maybe I should do that.” He aimed that at Jack as deliberate as could be and saw when he hit a bull’s eye. Jack looked like he’d been shot dead-on, sick and motionless against the wild way Ennis was rocking inside. “She doesn’t go blabbing about me to her friends.” 

“I ....” Jack drew breath and then said in a rush, “I didn’t either, damnit. I just wanted to talk to a friend because this hasn’t been the easiest -- ”

“You wanted to hear somebody calling you gorgeous, huh? Must have got tired of me and my plain talk, cause I know you too good to give you bullshit.”

“I’m going to murder Gary for sending those flowers to you,” Jack gritted, his hands by his sides in fists. “I swear I’m going to murder him.” 

“Junior doesn’t keep stuff from me like I ain’t fit to know the truth, and -- ”

“What?” Though Jack made a show of trying to look confused, Ennis could see a guilty light go off in his eyes, and in the way he looked away before looking back again. “What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t act dumb. You wouldn’t have told me about Delilah falling on me if Sandra hadn’t forced you into it, and you know it.”

“I didn’t want you to -- ”

“And I can’t believe you were so dumb that you thought the doctor wouldn’t tell me about my heart stopping. What did you think would happen if I knew?”

He could see Jack swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Look, I was just trying to -- ”

“Trying to what? You helped me make a fool of myself, not letting me know everybody here already knows about you and me.”

“The only way they wouldn’t have known would’ve been if I stayed home. Let you be here by yourself. Would you have wanted that?”

At least then Jack wouldn’t have seen his weakness, and Ennis wouldn’t be struggling with trying to keep the whole ocean of his fears from washing over Jack too. “Maybe that would’ve been for the best, if you’d stayed away, cause I ain’t ... I ain’t any good anyway.” He hated the sound of his own voice, cause though a man had to be strong, the truth was he didn’t sound strong at all. He grabbed at his knee and shook it. “Not good for myself, not good for you either. You taken a look at me lately? I’ll probably never walk normal again. You can’t hide that from me. You want to spend your days with a cripple?”

Jack circled right where he was, turning on his heel like a person pushed past his limits with nothing to do except move like that or howl at the moon. He came around to face Ennis again. “Oh, for Christ’s sake! You idiot! You’re just starting! You think you can get better in a couple of days? Go ahead, feel sorry for yourself, but you’ll be laughing next week when you’re dancing a jig.” 

Ennis’s anger was draining away along with his energy, and instead he was stuck in the mud of what was gonna become of him. How was he gonna live? Lean on Jack for every step? “You can’t fool me. I know the score. You’re better off without me. You should never have come here.” 

“You don’t mean that.”

Of course he didn’t, but he was saying it anyway. “Sure I do.” 

Jack took a couple steps so he was pressed against the mattress. He glared down at Ennis and the fire in his eyes proved he didn’t like what he saw. He whirled around and went to the bottom of the bed, faced Ennis again, aimed a finger at him that if it got close enough would probably poke a hole through his chest, and worked his mouth, but nothing came out. Jack looked as mad as Ennis had been a minute ago. Finally he went around to Ennis’s other side, by the window where the sounds of the trash truck were fading, put his hands on his hips, made a pained face, and dropped those hands to his sides. But he finally talked, every word bit off and thrown hard. 

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“What, that I’m never gonna -- ”

Jack cut him off. “You do pretty good when it’s just you and me, when it’s just a tiny space at home, but it’s not real to you, is it? It’s some sort of game, I guess.”

“What the hell do you mean, that’s not -- ”

“This isn’t a game to me, Ennis, you and me. This is my life. Get it? My life. There’s no way I could have stayed away from you when you were hurt. Are you crazy? No way. Fuck the rest of the world. Sure, it wasn’t any picnic having that old lady nurse lay into us, but something like that can’t put me off the way I feel about you. But you, I guess you -- ”

“Mister Del Mar?” A dark-skinned, short woman stood inside the doorway, for sure not a nurse, looking from Ennis to Jack and then back again. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m Tina Salazar, your physical therapist for the weekend. Are you ready to go down to the gym with me?”

“Perfect timing,” Jack told her, his words so bitter they were like soaked, day-old coffee grounds. “Sure he’s ready to go, cause I’m out of here.” He turned back to Ennis. “Oh, by the way, I won’t be back today, or tomorrow, and probably not Monday or Tuesday either, because I have been trying to tell you ever since I got here that I’m leaving. Corliss put the screws on me this morning, and if I want to keep my job, I’ve got be in Cimarron by noon, weekend or no weekend.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “I’m pushing it, so I better get going.” 

“Fine.” Ennis’s pride forced that out even though he felt like a football lineman had jumped on his chest and stayed there, all three hundred pounds of him. Jack gone? “You go on to the feedlot. Some boss you’ve got there.”

“Yeah, Corliss doesn’t give a damn about my broken ribs, that’s for sure, so I’ve got some driving to do.” 

Ennis frowned. What? Everything was going to hell, Jack leaving, Ennis having to face the next days alone without him, and now this. Soon he wasn’t gonna be able to breathe at all. “What’d you say? Ribs?”

Jack aimed a look at Ennis that cut right through him. “Yes, Ennis, ribs. You hear me okay? I’ll say it louder. Broken ribs. You never asked if I got hurt during the storm, did you? I didn’t hold it against you, but maybe I should’ve. Add that to your list of things I kept from you.” 

Real awkwardly, Jack bent down to pick up his hat, proving that what he’d said was true. So that explained the way he’d been sitting and moving. Suddenly, Ennis felt about as tall as a mouse. 

Jack jammed the hat on his head and stalked over to the doorway. Ennis turned and tracked him every step of the way. The therapist was still standing there, looking like a scared cat ready to spring away. “He’s all yours,” Jack said as he passed her, “because I don’t want him.”

And then he disappeared down the hallway. 

It would have been better if the trash was still being collected, cause anything would be good next to the silence now that Jack wasn’t here anymore. Ennis bit his lip and tried to dredge up how mad he was about that sign on the door, how everybody knew him and Jack .... 

The therapist aimed an uncertain smile his way. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Is he a friend of yours?”

Ennis collapsed back against the pillow and took in as much air as he could, but it didn’t push out any of the mess he was feeling inside. Goddamn Jack Twist, running out on him. Guess Jack had got real tired of sticking around a sick man who couldn’t do for himself. He must’ve been real glad when he got the call to go back where he belonged. 

“Yeah, he’s a friend,” he said, even though she must know that him and Jack were together, cause everybody did. 

She wasn’t looking at him anymore, probably a good thing. “I’ll go get the wheelchair. Be back in a bit.” 

Away she went. Ennis didn’t have but a few seconds before he heard her out in the hall, sounding surprised, and then back into the room came Jack, not gone much longer than a minute. Ennis didn’t have much time to tamp down how glad he was to see him and make sure the anger was still topmost, because Jack was hurrying like a man who was late for work and knew it. He took off his hat, tossed it this time on the closest chair, and growled, “Hey, there, you asshole,” as he got closer. 

“Dumbass,” Ennis gave him right back. “What’re you doing here again? Thought you’d gone.”

“I forgot something.” Jack scooped up the paper bag that he’d brought into the room when he’d first got there and shoved it into Ennis’s hands. “Those are your t-shirts and some of my pajama pants, for when they let you get out of that hospital gown. I figured you’d want them.” 

Ennis didn’t know a thing to say, so he didn’t say anything, dumped the bag to the side, and nodded. 

“There aren’t any real clothes in there,” Jack said with meaning, “just for the hospital. The rest of your clothes that I had with me I’m taking home. When you’re ready for jeans and boots, you’ll know where they are.” Jack was looming in Ennis’s sight like a mountain, not making any attempt to back off. His eyes flashed like the lightning that Ennis could barely remember. “If you’re going off to Junior’s when they let you out of here,” he said like a threat, “you’d better tell me right now, because I -- ”

“You shithead,” Ennis rumbled. “I ain’t going with her and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know it.”

“If you don’t, you’re dumber than I thought you were. I’m going home.”

“Oh, yeah? How come? You want to lay low where you can hide?” 

There was that coffee-grounds-voice again from Jack, a heaping of bitter with more sad than Ennis ever wanted to hear from his man. In a flash, images from his dream-time rose up in him, cause he knew sad like it was a part of his bones. 

He’d made a mistake one time, the same one over and over for twenty years, but once he hauled his ass down to Texas, he’d thought he wouldn’t make it again. Jack was a blabbermouth, but, well ....

“You ain’t gonna let me hide. I know you.” Ennis reached up and flicked his thumb against the side of Jack’s purpling cheek. Jack didn’t pull away when he did it; it was more like he pushed into Ennis touching him, so Ennis kept his hand there for a couple extra seconds and rubbed his thumb against Jack’s moustache. 

Jack seemed to soften all over. “You’ve got that right,” he said.

“I need to be home to keep you from getting in trouble, Jack Twist, cause left to yourself you’re sure to do that.” 

Jack huffed out a breath of air, and it seemed to Ennis more of his mad went with it. His blue eyes looking directly at Ennis: that was the way things needed to be, and what had helped Ennis through these last days in this prison with white-coated guards. 

“What you think is trouble and what I think is trouble are two separate things,” Jack said.

“I know trouble is this leg of mine. I can’t get it going.” For all the good that Jack coming back was doing for him, still he felt empty inside when he thought of walking. Or more likely not walking.

“You really are the world’s biggest asshole, you know that? You’ve got Gary beat by a mile. If you think like that, you really won’t get better.” 

“There ain’t nobody a bigger asshole than him.” 

“You give him a run for his money sometimes, damn you. Listen, I’ve got to go.”

Ennis figured that was it, cause Jack turned around, and it seemed he’d leave. But instead Jack reached for the curtain that divided the beds in the room, and he yanked it along the metal rail on the ceiling so it hid them from anybody looking in from the hall. 

“This is to keep the peace with old lady nurse,” Jack said as he made sure the curtain was fully drawn. “And to keep you from blowing a gasket.” He turned back to Ennis and bent over him, his right arm stiff with his hand resting next to Ennis’s hip. 

Ennis skimmed both hands down Jack’s sides. “Where’re you hurt? Which side? Both sides?”

“Left side. Got two broken ribs, and they hurt like hell sometimes.” 

“Damn. I am sorry to hear that. Don’t hurt yourself more now.” 

Jack shook his head, said “It doesn’t matter,” and came in closer. He came close enough to bring their lips together, which they shouldn’t be doing with a sick-Martinez or the new therapist due any minute, but he stopped short of a kiss. Ennis thought of Junior who’d come in on them before; Junior was where she belonged, in school, living her own life where she had to learn not to concern herself too much with her daddy’s. 

“I think your hearing’s getting better,” Jack said. 

Ennis felt the puff of air against his face, the sort of thing he’d never much stopped to appreciate during the mountain-years but what was a good part of his life now. “Oh, yeah?” he asked, puffing right back. 

“Yeah. I’m not talking that much louder than normal, and you can hear me. Ennis, you drive me crazy, you know that?” 

“I thought that was what living in Texas all those years did to you.” 

“Living where you weren’t living, that was enough to do it. I don’t want to leave, you know. I thought I’d drive straight to work from here on Monday morning, but Corliss isn’t giving me a choice.” 

“He’s a hardass.”

“You never spoke truer, friend. Listen, you’ll walk normal real soon. Just keep trying.”

Ennis reached to put his fingers around the back of Jack’s neck, where they gave him something to hang onto. “Jack, I ain’t sure trying’s gonna be enough.” 

Jack kissed him then, soft and quick, pushing back to say, “Have you ever looked positively on anything in your whole life?”

“Yeah,” Ennis said. “On a blue-eyed rascal from Lightning Flat.” 

He pulled Jack back where he belonged and took what he wanted, what he realized he needed with the first touch of their lips again. Cause even though he’d seen Jack, touched Jack, heard Jack through these long days, even kissed him, it was only right now, as their mouths opened to each other, that Ennis really woke up. 

“Hmmmm,” Jack hummed, and he clutched Ennis’s waist with his good-side hand.

They kept the kiss going for a while, not all het up but even so not something Ennis wanted to let go of until he had to, and it seemed Jack felt the same way. It seemed needed after the way they’d been yanked apart. But after some time they broke away naturally. The kiss had said all that it could say without them going where they couldn’t go right then. 

Even so, Jack didn’t stray far. He stayed pretty much where he was, practically in the bed with him. “Ennis, I’m sorry Gary sent those flowers.”

“Yeah, well, let’s fight about him later. But you’ve gotta stop treating me like a kid. It’s my leg that’s busted up, and a few other things, but not my head, okay?” 

“Okay. You see why I -- ”

“Sure, I see it, not wanting to lay stuff on me, but no more of that. You get what I’m saying?” He had to be a man, and Jack had to let him be one, or nothing would be right. Just cause he was queer didn’t mean he couldn’t take stuff on.

“I get what you’re saying,” Jack told him. 

“So, there anything you want to tell me right now?”

Jack licked his lips, smiled, and said, “Yeah. I want to tell you that I’m glad I had to come back and give you those pajamas.” 

Ennis surprised himself and chuckled. “Me too.” 

“Though you look real fetching in that hospital gown, got to let you know. Has me thinking on your ass all the time. Listen, I’ve got to go now for real.” 

Ennis shoved him away to prove that he was all right with Jack leaving and it didn’t bother him to be left alone. “You give Corliss shit for me, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll call you. Let me put the phone closer so you can answer it easier.” Jack did that and scooped up his hat. He looked along the length of the drawn curtain all around them and then back at Ennis.

Ennis hated what that meant. His insides trembled to think of how those Martinez folks already knew he wasn’t natural like they were, but he wasn’t gonna let old lady nurses boss him around. “Pull it back,” Ennis told him, thinking being queer got harder every day. But he’d told Jack he was strong enough to hear things, so he had to prove it to himself, he guessed. 

The curtain made its shushing sound as Jack pushed it aside, bringing them back to the room, back to life the way it was instead of how they wanted it to be. There wasn’t any man or family hating him there, not yet, and not a wheelchair and a therapist waiting for him either. 

“You’ll be all right,” Jack said, trying to buck him up, Ennis knew.

“Yeah. Go on now.”

“All right. So long.” 

*****

If Ennis had been able to afford to keep a telephone during the long years after his divorce, and if for some reason he’d reached for that phone and called down to Texas in a regular way, or let Jack do the calling, say every first Sunday or something like that, and if he’d really been able to hear Jack’s voice on the other end of the line and not just in his imaginings during their long separations... he figured he really and truly would have ended up in the loony bin. Hearing Jack’s voice on the phone but not being able to see him or touch him or say anything important was maybe the worst thing about being in St. Vincent’s Hospital for five fucking days on his own. 

Jack had been real faithful. He’d called on Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, and Monday and Tuesday nights. It was something shameful to hear that jangling ring and be disappointed because it was Jenny or Junior and not Jack. The hours had stretched, even with the phone going off now and then. These days Jack had been gone had been real lonely.

Their calls hadn’t been long, and it wasn’t like they could say anything important with just words when nurses passed in and out of his room whenever they pleased, but the high point of each frustrating, painful, miserable day was Ennis picking up the phone and hearing, “Hey, how are you doing?” Mostly, Jack sounded tired, especially Monday night when he didn’t get through until close to nine o’clock. Working late and grocery shopping, he’d said. 

On Saturday evening, Ennis asked the weekend nurse when he could go home. On Sunday he asked the Salazar woman, a pretty fine physical therapist because she’d got him walking nine steps in the morning and fifteen that afternoon. On Monday he asked Doctor Rutherford, hard to do but he forced himself, and the doctor had said let him think on it. And so on Tuesday night he was able to tell Jack that Wednesday was the big day. Jack had said, “Damn, I cannot wait to get you home.” Not nearly so much as Ennis needed to get home. 

And now it was Wednesday late afternoon. Ennis sat on the side of his bed, counting the minutes until he could put on his boots and jeans and shirt that Jack would bring him. He was all alone in the room cause Martinez was off getting some test. He sat on the side facing the window, which he hadn’t much done before, but he could see a tiny patch of the parking lot this way. If he stood up -- he knew the trick of it now and could do it on his own -- he saw ten parking spaces. None of them held Jack’s pick-up, so he eased himself down. Could be, though, that Jack was parked elsewhere and might even now be making his way down the hall. Ennis listened, because he’d passed a hearing test the day before and been told he was as good as new -- in the ears department, anyway -- but there was no sound of that man’s voice yet. 

It’d be soon, unless Corliss had figured out Jack was leaving early on a fake sales call. Ennis wished he could get up, thumb his nose to the nurses and doctor and therapists, and prove he could keep going out that door on his own. He’d peel the red triangle from off the door as he passed and meet Jack down in the lobby, walk to the pick-up, and climb in. But that wasn’t happening. He was even being forced to take along a walker-thing that Sandra had brought him. Jack didn’t know about it because Ennis hadn’t told him how things in the gym were going. Ennis might be better with staying upright and walking than he had thought was likely on that day Jack had left him, but he wasn’t near the way he needed to be. The thought of going home at last but not being strong there, of Jack seeing him lean on that thing, that was hard to bear. 

Just to prove to himself that he could, Ennis stood up again and cautiously made his way around the bed, keeping one hand on the mattress. He sat down on the bed again on the other side, trying not to notice the effort his little walk had taken. 

There was nothing to do but wait and think of all the things he wouldn’t miss about this place. All the wrong people touching him headed the list. 

_Come on, Jack, get your ass here. I’m ready to leave._

Cause he didn’t have anything else to do, Ennis reached over to the bedside table. He pulled open the drawer he hadn’t looked in before and rooted through the box of tissues, a plastic tub, and a thermometer in a bag. Woman things. But then his hand froze over what else was in there. 

His throat tightened. This would’ve been good during some of those long nights when he couldn’t sleep either for the pain or the worry, knowing Jack had brought the hawk feather to the hospital and stashed it there. 

Jack’s hawk. He remembered the night Jack had stood on his brakes to rescue the bird from the highway, and how he’d given Jack a hard time about it. Floyd had told him, when he’d visited on Sunday, that the hawk was still grounded. Huh. Guess he knew how that felt. 

Ennis picked up the feather and held it between his two hands, waiting for Jack.

*****


	11. Ebb and Flow

Every mile away from the hospital was so-long-and-good-riddance as far as Ennis was concerned, and every mile closer to where he’d set up housekeeping with Jack a great big step in the right direction. Pulling away from the noise and traffic of Santa Fe loosened up the knot in his stomach; at last he was free from the place where everybody was in his business, where their business was to be in his business. Over the past week -- that had been so hard -- he’d sometimes, almost, let himself wish that the bolt from heaven had gone and done the job all the way. He always caught that thought before it was fully formed. 

“You doing all right over there?” Jack asked as he brought the truck to a stop. The little town of Alcalde had just one red light. 

Ennis straightened his left leg and wished he could move his other leg so easily. “Yeah, I’m fine.” This wasn’t the simplest thing he’d ever done, sitting for more than two hours in Jack’s Ford, being driven instead of driving. Plus the truck didn’t have nearly the smooth ride he remembered. He was being jostled good, and even the pain pill the nurse had given him couldn’t work against it. But this was the way home, so he wasn’t gonna complain. 

“I put some beef stew in the slow cooker that we can have for dinner,” Jack said. “I knew you wouldn’t want to stop for food.” 

“Waste of money.”

“I cook better than those folks at Maudie’s anyway.” 

Ennis sort of huffed at that, half-grunt and half-laugh, and Jack threw him a look that sparkled like one of those wilderness waterfalls they used to find now and again, with the sunlight on it. No person had ever looked like that to Ennis’s eyes except this man. 

Yep, he was glad he was still around to see Jack like that. He wanted to keep looking, to fill up his sight that had been so empty since Jack’d had to leave, but the light changed and Jack had to fix his attention on driving. Ennis felt the loss but looked ahead as the miles ran under their tires. They’d be home soon enough. Home. Mornings when he’d wake up not-alone and they could have breakfast together. Evenings when he wouldn’t be stuck with the machines and the nurses, but instead Jack would be there and they’d eat and watch TV and pay bills and talk. Nighttime when Jack would touch him. It’d been so long. Jack’s skin under his fingers. Home.

They ran into traffic in Taos because of the end-of-work crowd, where they were in familiar territory. He’d never have guessed it’d be such a good thing to be driving past his bank, and the Kit Carson house that pulled in the tourists, and then that bar where he’d met Jack that one night. Finally they turned onto Route 64 and left the tangle of buildings behind. Not even forty-five minutes to go, maybe fifty the way Jack was driving. He wanted Jack not to drive so cautiously, so they’d get there sooner, but he kept his thoughts to himself. The familiar stands of pines guarded each side of the road, thick and green like always, as they followed the twists and turns that would take them to the wide spaces of the Moreno Valley. 

As they drove past the spot where Ennis had hit the deer back in July, it sort of felt like puzzle pieces were being put back into place inside of him. _Snap. Snap._ Like when he’d played with little Junior and Jenny: _This piece goes up here in the corner, see, and this piece fits over there._ A man wasn’t meant to go too far from where he truly belonged. Now it felt like he was getting those pieces of himself back. For the first time since he’d woke up, Ennis felt some life flowing into his bones. Maybe he really could get back on his feet again. Maybe the therapist that would show up on Friday would get him walking normally and riding before he’d know what happened. Maybe being at home would make all the difference.

Eagle Nest Lake sparkled with the last rays of the setting sun, and Jack started to drive around the long loop that circled the water and led into town. “Sure does look pretty, doesn’t it?” he asked. 

Ennis nodded and felt the zipper of his jacket brush against his chin. With night close by, the temperature was dropping outside, but inside the truck with Jack, he was warm.

Eagle Nest was so small that if a man blinked he’d miss it, but Ennis didn’t blink. He took it all in -- the post office and Allsup’s and the realtor’s office and the school and the Baptist church -- all of it unfamiliar back in April when they’d moved here. How was it that now every place he laid his eyes on seemed like an old friend? Time was, all he’d known was his tiny slice of Wyoming and the everlasting turmoil inside him: wanting Jack but pushing him away, loving Jack but never letting himself really feel it. 

And now here they were in New Mexico, settled like they meant to stay, and only minutes from home since there was the Buckminster ranch. 

“Betty Jo said she’d stop by and see you tomorrow,” Jack said.

“Oh, yeah? What for?”

“Don’t you give her any grief,” Jack warned. “I’ve come to an understanding with her. She’s a good woman.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t, but there still ain’t no need for her to be bothering with me. She’s got enough of her own worries.” 

“That she does. But I guess she wants to bring you chicken soup or something.” 

“Christ,” Ennis said. 

And then they were turning off the highway onto County Road 19, and minutes after that turning again into their own driveway. 

His throat tightened in a childish way as the truck took forever to cover the final distance to the house. Ennis leaned forward, grabbed hold of the strap overhead, and took in all the places that made this rented place home. The forest with its bushes was shadowy in the twilight, and the tops of the trees swayed in the fine breeze coming down from the high holy places. The sight pulled up memories of the times he’d gone in under the leafy shade with Jack, always for important reasons pulled from deep down. And there was the equipment that Jack had got from the auction at the fair, scattered across the grass, that Bobby had helped out with. How Ennis wished the boy had treated his dad better and not bruised his heart. The truck slowed to a crawl, even now with the front door, where Lureen’s knock had changed their lives. He’d come close to joining Lureen on the other side of this life; thinking of being spread out up on the mountainside without a heartbeat gave him the spooks. 

And then, finally, here was the side door. Ennis had sat outside that door in the fading sun with Floyd and Jack and listened to the rise and fall of their voices. That had been a good night. 

There’d been a lot of good nights and good days in this house, what he’d never in his whole life had before or even imagined for himself. 

It was too much. Ennis let go of the strap, curled his fingers together in his lap, and fixed his gaze on them as the tires finally came to a stop. The truck went silent. 

“Well,” Jack said, “here we are.” 

“Yeah,” Ennis said, hardly talking, fighting against all he felt inside. 

Jack didn’t seem to have any inclination to jump out of the pick-up right away. He sat there without saying anything while Ennis wrestled himself back to being a man in a man’s world. Finally he looked away from his hands and up to the house. A million times better than the hospital. The outside lights hadn’t come on yet, but he could still see fine. 

“Huh,” he managed. It was good that his voice sounded normal. “That screen door looks like it’s on its last legs. Hangs crooked, don’t you think?”

Jack put one arm up on the steering wheel and looked past Ennis. “Yeah, you’re right. We should take it down for the winter.”

“Get some sort of storm door instead, or all our heat will leak out.” 

“Okay, I’ll take care of that.”

“Not yet. We need to wait until your ribs are healed.” 

“I’m doing okay.”

Ennis turned to check out the fella who was the reason for those good days and good nights. Jack met his gaze right away. “Yeah?” Ennis asked, trying to put not-believing into his voice even though it came out mostly as something a lot softer. 

“I’m a whole lot better,” Jack said. “Just like you are.”

Ennis hunched his left shoulder because it didn’t really bother him much anymore; there was just a little bandage over the burn. He didn’t trust what Jack said. It was clear to him that Jack was set on ignoring himself and his hurt left side and trying to do everything for Ennis instead. That had to stop. “You just say you’re better.”

“Yep, I do say.”

“You’ve gotta be careful. Won’t do for you to tackle that door if you’re not up to it.”

“I won’t. Are you ready to get out, or do you plan on holding a party here in the truck?”

Ennis ignored that, like Jack deserved, and reached for the handle. He managed to get it open and slid to his feet, but he wasn’t so sure about the walking part. He eyed the distance from where he stood to the door. 

Jack came around from the other side and stepped close. “Come on, let’s get you where you belong.”

Ennis grunted when Jack slipped an arm around his waist, liking it and not liking it at the same time. It wasn’t right to be depending on Jack’s strength cause he didn’t have much of his own, but so long as nobody else was around to see, he supposed he could put up with it. He leaned into Jack maybe too easily and with a sigh that he covered with a cough. Once he forced his feet to take a couple steps, he stopped thinking of how right it felt for Jack to help him instead of some hired hospital help and instead felt shame that he covered ground like he was a hundred years old. At least he was moving without using the walker-thing. Jack had put that in the truckbed without saying anything about it. 

“This ain’t too much for your ribs?” 

“Would you quit worrying about me?” Jack asked as he put his key in the lock. “I’m sorry I ever told you about them. You’re the one who’s come home from the hospital today.”

It wasn’t like he needed reminding. “Seems we’re the blind leading the blind here.” Ennis was sure he’d hurt Jack as he’d shuffled along. Damn the situation he was in.

Their first few steps inside proved that the kitchen cooking smells trailed up not only into his nose but also landed on his tongue, in that way that sometimes happened, sharp and unmistakable, as if they were at the table spooning in the food already. Of a sudden, weariness poured through him, and Ennis wanted to sit down at their table in the worst way. Here he could put down his guard at last, the shield he’d kept up in the hospital against everybody who thought less of him. He was home now. He could rest. He was safe with Jack.

A memory of his mama cooking on a deep winter afternoon came to him, of her turning away from the stove and smiling at him. Jack cooked stew a little like his mama had.

Ennis stopped where he was, and Jack let go of him. That was pansy-ass thinking. If this was what coming home did to a man, then he’d have to make sure not to ever have reason to leave again. He straightened himself up and paid no mind to his tiredness.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Jack said. “I’ll get your -- ”

“Like hell,” Ennis said, rougher than he meant to. Fighting against this weakness inside was harder than going against the weakness of his body. He couldn’t let Jack know how soft he’d gone. After all those days in the hospital -- twelve whole days -- he had a long way to go to prove to Jack that he was a man still, the same man who Jack could maybe think high on. “I’ve had enough of beds to last me a lifetime.”

Jack folded his arms. Ennis hoped it wasn’t so obvious how he was hanging onto the back of a chair to keep upright. 

“Well, that means we’ve got problems,” Jack said. “Because I’m not ready to give up what we do in bed.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Ennis growled. Was Jack even crazier than usual? He turned himself around. “I’m headed for the TV. The second game of the Series is on tonight. Or aren’t you watching baseball no more?”

No two ways about it, he had to let Jack help him back there. He tried to take the step down to the back room fast and get it over with. That was a mistake since he nearly fell flat on his face, but Jack caught him. Shit! Ennis gritted his teeth and made sure he didn’t make any other fool’s moves as they crossed the room. He finally managed to get himself down on the wide couch. 

“How do you want to sit? Maybe the chair would be bet -- ”

“Quit that. I’m sitting where I’m sitting.” 

“Damn if you haven’t turned into Granny Crabapple tonight. You want to eat now?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” 

Jack left to serve up the stew. With him gone, Ennis figured he could get more comfortable, so he lifted his bad right leg and stretched it out on the cushion. He sighed in relief since it sure did feel better that way. Jack came back and saw him rubbing it, but he didn’t say anything. He handed Ennis a bowl with a spoon and went to turn on the TV. 

The game was on already, the second game of the World Series with the Detroit Tigers against the San Diego Padres. It was still in the first inning. Ennis made quick work of eating. He thought of telling Jack how good it tasted, but he caught the words on his tongue and never let them out. He had to be careful, didn’t he? If he started talking about that, then maybe he’d keep going about how being home was real fine, and that them sitting together in this room made him remember Jack’s birthday not so long ago, when they’d made love right here on the couch. That was a good memory and a bad one at the same time, cause Ennis sure did want that again and didn’t have it yet. 

“You finished with that? You want more?” Jack was standing over him, reaching for the bowl. 

“Nope, I’m good.” Ennis handed it over and watched Jack walk away to the kitchen. Jack Twist always had offered a mighty fine ass. It had been two solid weeks since he’d palmed that ass so he could touch as much as he could, or kissed it in the dark of night the way he knew made Jack moan, or fucked it with Jack’s legs spread and shaking. He was way too tuckered out to think of doing any of those things right now, but someday.... During some of those sessions in the hospital’s gym, when he’d known he couldn’t stand one more second, he’d thought of making love with Jack and how Jack wanted a real man in his bed, not a cripple. That had kept him going, swearing under his breath and sweating. 

He was better, but he sure wasn’t dancing a jig yet. Was barely even walking. Ennis looked down at his leg and set a hand on his thigh.

When Jack came back the Tigers had taken the lead, and Ennis made it a point to let him know. 

“You wait,” Jack said as he settled into his recliner like it was an old friend and not something new in the room. “San Diego has power. They’ll come back.” 

The third inning came and went. The fourth inning started, and Ennis felt the drive home weigh ever heavier on him. But he remembered how he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open that night in the hospital when Jack had watched one of the playoff games with him. Jack had said that he’d feared they’d never get to watch a World Series together. Well, here they were, watching, and Ennis felt satisfaction that he was able to give Jack what he’d wanted just by sitting there and staying awake. With his left foot on the floor and him angled in the corner of the couch to see the TV, he was sort of half up and half down. Jack had his feet up and his attention was fixed on the screen, no doubt cheering inside for the worthless National League team. 

Ennis cleared his throat, though he didn’t really know why. Maybe just to get Jack’s eyes on him again. “Uh, we got any beer in this house?” 

There were two real clear gray strands in Jack’s moustache that hadn’t been there before Ennis had played lightning rod. “I’m not so sure you should have -- ”

“Fine. I’ll go get it myself.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll get it. But just one.” 

“Ain’t nobody asked you to be my nurse,” Ennis hollered at his back as he left. “And I ain’t no Crabapple either!” 

“Sure you are.” Jack’s voice drifted back to him. “I wouldn’t know who I was with if you weren’t.” 

Ennis surprised himself by letting loose a chuckle at that, at the freedom they had at last to be themselves in their own place. He understood Jack and what he was really saying, and Jack understood him better than anybody. How had he managed to stay in that hospital room for so long without this? 

When Jack came back with the beer, with one of his smiles and his free hand sliding across Ennis’s cheek, Ennis thought maybe Jack would lean over and kiss him. Instead Jack looked down at him like he was made of precious glass that belonged in a museum somewhere. He considered grabbing Jack and pulling him down so they could sit close, thigh to thigh. But before he could do anything, Jack ran his fingers through Ennis’s hair -- took only a second, there and then gone -- and moved away. 

He turned his attention back to the TV just as the Padres took the lead. Some guy who hardly ever even got singles hit a three run homer. 

“Told you they’d come back,” Jack said as he sat back in his recliner like a king. 

“There’s a lot of game left.”

But it didn’t look like Detroit had any power this night. All through the last few innings, Ennis pretty much lost hope that the game might be theirs. He fought to stay awake and realized with some shame that he’d been accustomed to shutting down pretty early at Saint Vincent’s. 

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time for bed.” 

He hadn’t been drifting, had he? Ennis shook his head. The TV was off, and Jack was standing over him with his hands held out.

“I can get up,” Ennis growled. 

“Sure you can, but there’s no need to -- ”

“Let me be.”

He did okay, getting on his feet and taking a couple steps on his own. Jack hovered right next to him, though. “Get out of my way,” Ennis told him. 

“Right, sure, I’ll go out and look at the stars. Come on, Ennis, let me give you a hand.” 

Ennis ignored him. It seemed like it took him ten minutes to make it to the step up from the back room. He stopped there, not saying anything and hoping he wasn’t breathing as heavily as it sounded to him he was. Jack grabbed his arm then and practically hauled him up. How was he gonna do things tomorrow on his own when Jack was at work? 

“You are a stubborn jackass,” Jack said. “You want to stop for a piss?”

Ennis managed the bathroom on his own. But then it was around the corner with plenty of help and finally into their bedroom. It felt good to sit on their own bed at last. It was hard to believe that just walking the length of the house had taken this much out of him.

“That hospital mattress was too hard,” Ennis said as he pushed his pants down to his knees. He jerked away from helping-Hannah-Jack reaching to finish the job for him and got the rest of his clothes off on his own. 

When Ennis dumped all of it on a pile on the floor, Jack shoved everything over to a corner with his foot. “So you don’t fall over them tomorrow,” he said, and Ennis couldn’t fault him for thinking ahead. Huh. So Jack thought he’d be walking around the next day. 

Jack went off to the bathroom and came back in his boxers and T-shirt almost before Ennis had a chance to look around and reassure himself that nothing here had changed. Jack shut off the light and slid under the sheet, and there they were in the dark, side by side in the bed. Ennis blinked and blinked again, relaxing at last against the mattress. He heard Jack breathe. This was the best moment of the entire day. 

“You okay?” Jack asked. 

Sure he was. Would be. Someday he’d be okay. He was pretty okay right here, right now next to Jack, wasn’t he? Except for all the things he feared he couldn’t do.

Jack kept talking. “Tell me if there’s anything I can get you. Maybe you need another pain pill so you can -- ”

“I’m okay.” 

All that he wanted to say to Jack weren’t even thoughts in his head. They were just mixed-up feelings in his gut, mainly a big reaching out from his side of the bed toward Jack’s side, not in the way of arms moving but more of a yearning in his whole body. For sure no words came to him. 

*****

A strong wind rattling the window startled him awake. He jerked a little, and the dead weight of his leg brought him back to himself: where he was now, how he was now. A sudden heavy rain pounded the house as he reached to pull up the sheet. It was cold out, he was sure, though not so cold as to turn the rain into snow. Another month or more and maybe then the valley would get its first sprinkling of white. He’d have to pay special attention to the horses, make sure they got the right feed, that their water didn’t freeze over .... 

Oh, hell, the horses. He hadn’t even thought about them. What kind of horseman was he, to be forgetting the animals in his charge?

“Jack?” he said into the night. 

“Yeah?” came a voice from his left side, thick and slow.

“We didn’t see to the horses when we got home.”

A howl came rolling down off the mountains. Ennis stilled to listen to it, though he knew it was just the wind. When it was done and gone, Jack rolled over toward him. Ennis turned his head to see him, just the shadowy outline of his arm and the blanket pulled up over the rest of him to prove that it was really Jack there. 

“The horses aren’t your job right now,” Jack said. “Don’t worry.” 

“They been looked after today?”

“Sure. Floyd’s been stopping by every day. Well, Matt sometimes, but one of them comes and does it.”

“I don’t want the pinto out in this storm.”

“I’m sure he was put under cover.”

“He ain’t hardy like the rest of them.”

“Maybe he’s hardier than you think. But I’ll go check on him, I guess.” Jack sat up and tossed off the covers.

“Nah, don’t do it. No sense in you getting soaked.”

Jack lay back down. “Good. I’ve got to tell you that I’m no fan of storms anymore.”

Ennis knew now, more than ever, that storms were serious business. “Me neither.”

“I think I’ll pull the covers over my head if this thing gets going with thunder and lightning.” 

“This one doesn’t have any of that. It’s just rain.” 

Rain with a thousand raindrops fell on their roof, a million of them, sort of like the thoughts that sometimes whirled around in his head. He’d had too many quiet, empty hours to think in the hospital. 

“Jack?”

“Yeah?” Jack didn’t sound sleepy now. 

“Tell me .... I can’t remember all that happened that afternoon. I can’t remember hardly any of it.” 

Jack tucked his hands under the pillow. “I can’t remember it all either.”

“Huh?” Damn that it wasn’t so easy to turn over as it used to be. He sort of hitched himself a little to the side, so at least he could see Jack easier without twisting his neck so much. “Whatcha mean?” 

“I was knocked out by the lightning too.”

One more thing he hadn’t known. When would that end? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He saw the motion of Jack’s shoulders as he shrugged, a lighter gray shadow against the dark. “I don’t know.”

But there was an edge to Jack’s voice that told Ennis otherwise. “Like hell you don’t know. You told me about your ribs.”

“Ennis ....”

“You said you wouldn’t keep secrets from me anymore.” 

“I know that,” Jack said, sounding like his face had an annoyed frown on it. “It’s just that .... Can’t you leave well enough alone?” 

“You think I don’t give a flying fuck that you got knocked out? Just cause it took me a while to notice you were hurt too, that doesn’t -- ”

“It’s not that.” 

“Then what is it? Why can’t you just tell me what happened, or what you remember happened, and then -- ”

“Christ!” 

A second later the bedside light was on. Jack leaned down over him, looking like some ferocious man. “Asshole,” Jack hissed, practically nose to nose with him. “It’s not like it’s one of my favorite memories! You weren’t breathing, and I couldn’t feel your heart! I was up there in the rain with you, with thunder all around, and I thought you were dead!” 

As if he realized just then what he’d said, Jack’s face froze. For a long span of seconds Ennis stared up at him, and Jack looked down on him, and then with a groan Jack was gone. He flopped over onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes. 

Ennis’s mouth flooded with his fear, even though it’d happened two weeks ago. He forced himself to swallow it down. They were safe inside, not soaking wet, and the clouds were not pouring hellfire down on their heads. He knew for sure he wasn’t dead, even if his stomach was rolling like he was seasick. He was okay.

Ennis turned his head some more toward Jack. Underneath that arm that he was hiding under, it seemed to Ennis that Jack was the one who wasn’t okay. He wasn’t breathing all that steady.

It wasn’t easy, cause it hurt, but he pulled on his leg to help it move up and over. He got close enough so he could put a hand on Jack’s arm. It was just his imagination that told the skin was freezing cold. “It’s okay.” He didn’t know what else might be right to say. “It didn’t happen.” 

“It could have,” Jack said with what sounded like a hiccup. “I fell off Jigger, and then you got off Delilah to come help me ....”

... Jack falling, sliding down the hillside, Ennis desperately blinking against the driving rain to see if he was all right... _Jack!_ he’d called, maybe he’d even screamed it, but the wind had whipped it away. _Jack!_ With a catch of his breath, Ennis realized he remembered that now. 

“ ... and then _bam,_ the lightning hit us both. I knew it was coming a split second before it got us.”

He’d been so scared, cause it looked like maybe Jack had landed on his head. Delilah rearing up and plunging down, knowing he couldn’t get her under control fast enough, kicking his feet loose from the stirrups and jumping off -- _Have to help Jack. Jack!_ \-- the wet ground under his feet as he scrabbled for a foothold on the slippery grass. 

Ennis swallowed hard. “A helluva thing.” 

“And then I woke up and found you not breathing, and I didn’t have any idea how long I’d been out.” All of a sudden Jack’s arm came down, dislodging Ennis’s hold on him, and he glared at Ennis as if the lightning had been all his idea. His eyes flashed like the storm was in them. “You get what I’m talking about?”

Uneasily, Ennis nodded. “Sure, you -- ”

“You might not have woke up at all, or if you did, you might’ve been an idiot, or -- ”

“I did wake up,” Ennis said quick.

“But I didn’t know!” Jack passed his hand across his face, not hiding that he was wiping away tears. “I don’t know why I care, not like it would make any difference, you’re a dumbass any which way, so it hardly mattered if -- ”

“Jack.” 

Another hiccup. “Yeah?” 

Ennis reached for him, cause nothing else would do but holding on to one another. “Come over here.” 

Jack didn’t waste any time. As Ennis did his best to haul him close, Jack did the job for him. Ennis was rocked onto his back by the force of Jack erasing the distance between them, but it was perfect. Jack fit himself within the curl of Ennis’s arm and clutched at his waist, and Ennis held onto him as tight as he could, flattening his hands up under Jack’s t-shirt and pulling close. He buried his nose in Jack’s hair and breathed in deeply. 

“S’all right,” Ennis murmured. “We’re both here.”

Nothing this-kind-of-good had happened during the hospital-forever-stay: Jack’s weight on him, the tacky-sweat wonder of Jack’s skin under his fingers at last. He slid his hands all over -- back, sides, waist, up to shoulders -- wanting to remind himself of all the different ways of touching Jack he could, and while he did that, Jack was sort of moaning, just little moans, really, rocking back and forth against Ennis a little, pulling back and moving close, then pulling back and moving close again, over and over again.

Ennis pressed a kiss on the side of Jack’s head, hard as he could, bruising his lips with how hard he forced himself onto Jack. Why hadn’t they done this right away once they were alone inside? How come he hadn’t really understood he needed this? Jack in his arms.

Jack moved, his chin bumping across Ennis’s chest. When he pressed a kiss between his nipples, Ennis growled and put his hand on Jack’s head to keep him there. Jack didn’t fight him; instead he sighed, a real good sound, and it was every good thing to feel those lips on his skin, moving now and then, but most of all just there. 

Ennis blinked hard. There’d been two or three really bad nights in the hospital when he’d woke up in the dead darkness, after one of his breath-pounding dreams, and reached for a Jack who wasn’t there. He’d make sure that never happened again.

Jack moved, but he didn’t go far. He turned so his cheek was pressed where his mouth had been. Ennis tangled his fingers in Jack’s hair. Two puppies cuddled together couldn’t have been closer than they were right then.

After a couple minutes of breathing in and breathing out, with Ennis not letting go and Jack not showing any signs he wanted to roll away, Jack finally said something. 

“If I hadn’t gone riding Jigger that day,” Jack said, sounding sad and guilty, “none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t have been hurt so bad. Damn me for doing that. I should have just -- ”

“You got home early from a sales call, right? I remember you saying that.” 

Jack swallowed. Ennis could feel it over his heart. “Yeah. Sure, that’s what I did, got home early. I should’ve stayed home when I got there, not -- And then if I hadn’t fallen off Jigger, maybe you would’ve gotten Delilah under rein and just ridden her away.”

“Yeah. Maybe. No, that ain’t right.” No way in heaven or on earth should Jack sound so low, and Ennis searched for a way to prove Jack was wrong. “If ... if you hadn’t taken that fall off Jigger, I still would have been on Delilah, right?”

“I guess.”

“And she’s the one that got hit. If I’d still been up on her, that would’ve been it for me. I’d be done for.”

Jack sighed. “I know. I’ve been telling myself that. I’m still sorry I -- ”

“So how’d I come back?” He had to know that, so he could get rid of the picture he had in his head of him laying flat with the rain falling on his face, and Jack uphill, not close. 

“What?” 

“You said I wasn’t breathing, so how’d I get started again?” Had he breathed during the long years that he’d kept himself apart from Jack? Not really. Maybe the first deep breath he’d taken since his folks had missed the curve was here in New Mexico, and it wasn’t because of the pure mountain air, either. 

“I might not be any doctor,” Ennis found himself saying, “but I know those things don’t happen on their own. You got me going again, didn’t you?” 

Jack sniffed, that was definite. “Yeah. I did everything I could think of, quick as I could. Breathed in your mouth, pounded .... You know.” 

“So there you go.”

“There I go where? It doesn’t balance out, Ennis, I -- ”

“Sure it does. At least to me it does. It beats being left for dead up there. Hey ....” He moved his hand under Jack’s chin. Jack came up willingly until they were looking at each other. “Thanks.” 

Ennis lifted his head until they could kiss. Jack’s lips were warm and dry under his, and something inside Ennis got bigger and bigger, so big he felt like he might explode with it. He wanted the kiss, gentle and sweet, to go on forever, to turn into something more, something open-mouthed, wet, and desperate, something that would lead to sex and proving all sorts of things to Jack and to himself ... but the effort of keeping his head up like that was too much for him. He broke the kiss, fell back on the pillow, and whispered, “I’m real glad you were there, Jack. I doubt anybody else would have cared enough for my sorry ass to get me back ... well, back alive.”

“I care,” Jack said. He surged forward, seeking a full-out hug, seeming to need it the way Ennis needed it too. Though Jack’s weight made the skin over his burn pull and ache, Ennis took him into his arms again with gladness.

“Jesus,” Jack said as they rocked together, the sides of their faces pressed close.

“Yeah,” Ennis said. He could feel wetness against his cheek, Jack’s tears. “Jesus.”

“It was cold that night,” Jack whispered, his voice not too steady. “You were like ice even after I got you breathing again.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“I tried to keep you warm, but there wasn’t any way. I had to leave to get help.”

“Shhh, shhh,” Ennis told him. “Course you did.”

“I covered you up with the saddle pad when I left.” 

“Smart thing to do.”

“Only thing to do. Took everything in me to walk away from you. I could have lost you.” 

“I’m here.” He flung his left leg over Jack to keep him where he was. That’s what he wanted, for Jack to stay right there, because he couldn’t stand it if Jack went away like in those wild dreams he’d had before he’d woke up. 

Ennis rubbed his cheek against Jack’s and pushed back against how aching-heart-bad that memory made him feel. That mixed-up time in his head wasn’t real, cause Jack was here on top of him. But some parts of the memories seemed like life .... “Tell me more about what happened. Was ... was Samson there?”

“Samson?” Jack’s hand moved restlessly along Ennis’s arm, and he took comfort from the touch. That was happening in the here and now, Jack smelling of stew and sweat and the cold night air. “Yeah. Rocky rode him up once I found the Buckminsters. Or they found me. Why, do you remember him?”

“I .... Yeah. But it was more of a dream.”

“What was it about?”

“Ahhh ....” He couldn’t tell Jack this. It was crazy. The unmistakable feel of the horse galloping under his legs as Samson brought him in from the far, far reaches of despair? Knowing he wouldn’t have made it back to Jack without that wise horse?

“Ennis?” Jack rolled off him to the side, pushed himself up on his elbow, and then took in a quick, strained breath. 

“Ribs hurting? You’ve got to watch out.” Maybe what they’d just done had hurt Jack more, but Ennis’d had to have it. Jack too. Even so, it wasn’t enough. Just barely, a tiny shaft of light when the land needed days and weeks of the sun to dry out from a flood-tide.

“No, no, I’m good. Just a twinge. If I move the right way, I’m fine.” 

“You be careful then,” Ennis said. He reached out and tugged on a short strand of dark hair. He knew when their midnight time was over; the dawn with its work obligations and the hours he’d be alone wasn’t far away. “You’ve got the feedlot in the morning and should sleep. That stuff about Samson was just a dream that didn’t make sense. Come on, lay back down.”

Ennis wanted to pat the space on his pillow next to his head, so that they could fall asleep touching. So what if it was pansy-ass to need Jack a lot closer than he normally slept here in Eagle Nest, more like their old days or like after lovemaking? It was just the two of them, and.... But he didn’t ask for that.

Jack leaned over to put out the light on his side of the bed, and when he did lay back down, he settled where he’d been, pushed up against Ennis. He ran his hand down Ennis’s arm and touched his curled fingers. “You need to sleep too. You need to do a lot of that over the next few days.” 

“Worrywart.”

“Crabapple.” Jack lifted up some and kissed him, peaceful and calm, natural between them. 

After that, it took but a short time for Jack’s breathing to match the rhythm of the rain and the wind. Ennis spent a long time listening to him. The finest sound in his night: Jack breathing next to him. 

*****

When he opened his eyes to the dark room again, the storm had passed over. There wasn’t any rain pounding on the roof, so something else must have woke him up. Who knew what it might have been? He closed his eyes again. Couldn’t see much in the dark anyway.

There it was. A whisper of sound coming from Jack’s side of the bed, like a deeply inhaled breath, sharp. And movement. The mattress was jouncing, like waves hitting a rocky shore, one after another. 

Ennis’s eyes flew open. Was Jack... He wasn’t pressed up close anymore. He was way over on his own pillow, on his own side of the bed, taking care of his own needs, alone. Jack was jerking off right next to him, thinking Ennis was asleep. 

What the hell? What did Jack think he was doing? He didn’t have no right to .... And why hadn’t he just asked? Cause Ennis would’ve been happy to .... They could have ...

Ennis stiffened all over, spitting mad, except ... the most important part hadn’t stiffened. 

Next to him, the waves were coming in stronger, faster, Jack’s hand on his dick jerking him closer to giving it up. Ennis could struggle upright, or reach out and punch Jack, or holler out loud, and that would stop it. But what could he offer Jack on this night? A limp dick? Not even being able to hold his head up for a kiss? Not a tingle in his body had told of a sex-interest then, and it didn’t now either, though all the rest of him .... He swallowed, trying to keep it quiet. All the rest of him wanted Jack. But on this first night home from the hospital, there was nothing in him worth giving, and so Ennis just lay where he was and took it.

He took it like the time he’d let the guy beat him up on that Thanksgiving night. Damn all storms, damn all lightning bolts, damn Delilah, damn hospitals with their ways of stripping a man of what was important to him, tubes up his dick and everything else. 

Jack was getting real close now. Ennis knew every inch of that man’s body and knew his sex-ways. Any second now. 

“Uh. Uhh. Ahh.”

They were just whispers of sound. Jack kept it real quiet, not like he normally was.

The bed was still now, Jack rolling over with a sigh and then seeming to fall asleep again right away. Ennis wanted to keep being mad, but he wasn’t. Jack had gone someplace he just couldn’t go with him right now.

The dark behind his eyelids was so black. Ennis had thought he was home, but he supposed he really wasn’t. He wouldn’t be all the way home until he could join with Jack all ways. 

*****

The next day, he was snoozing in the front room’s only upholstered chair, with his leg propped up on the desk chair that he’d pulled over, and with the walker-thing drawn up close, when a knock at the door woke him up. 

“Huh?” he said, not quite fully aware. 

“Ennis?” came his name through the wood. 

He sat up straight as he recognized the voice. 

“Ennis, it’s me, Betty Jo. Don’t come to the door, I’ve got a key.” 

It chafed him bad that he was stuck there sitting. He had no way of getting up without looking the fool in front of her. And how had she come by a key, anyway? Ennis just managed to shove the walker behind him into a corner and bring his foot down to the floor when he heard the key turn. The kitchen and front room were flooded with light, and there she was. 

Betty Jo came in with a smile wide as her hips, red cheeks like she usually had, and towing little Davey by the hand. He watched as she put a big bag she was carrying down on the table, let go of her little boy, and came over to where he was parked in the fancy, striped chair that Lureen had bought for them. 

“Oh, Ennis!”

He endured the hug since there was no escaping it. She put her all into it too, gripping him hard and sort of swaying as she leaned down over him. Then she pulled back and gave him a good look while still holding onto his shoulders. He shrugged and she let him go. 

“You are looking good!” she said. “So much better than when I saw you in the hospital.” 

He looked away, not comfortable with her and her enthusiasm. “Hi, Betty Jo.” 

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, which was a good thing cause it would be a cold day in hell before he told her anything like the truth. “I thought I’d bring you lunch and a few other things, okay? I wasn’t sure how much walking around you’d be doing to start with. The first few days back from the hospital are tough, I remember.”

She went back into the kitchen, and he felt the need to say something. “Uh, you got hurt once too?”

“Hurt? Oh, no, I’m talking about coming home after a C-section. That’s how Davey was born. Now, I brought the makings of tuna fish salad for sandwiches, for us to have for lunch. Is that all right? Do you like tuna fish?”

Lunch? She was staying for that? Well, he’d been wondering how he’d feed himself. “That’s fine.”

She started pulling containers out of the bag, looking at home in his kitchen like it was her own, but he figured that was a woman-thing. He tried to pretend it didn’t bother him when there wasn’t any doubt it did. It seemed to him that he’d spent every waking moment of the day so far being bothered; nothing could go right with him stuck in the house alone. Now here was this woman taking over and interrupting his sleep that Jack had said he needed. He was hungry, though. 

“Davey,” she called, and the boy came stomping out of the back room, looking like maybe he’d been up to some mischief. Ennis wondered what he’d been doing back there. The boy was a roamer, that was true.

“Go say hello to Ennis. You remember Ennis, don’t you?”

“Course he does.” 

Davey didn’t show any hesitation coming right up to him. “Ennis!” he said loud and clear, and the next second he tried to climb into Ennis’s lap. 

Ennis grabbed him around the waist and held him off, putting some effort into it as Davey was built like a little truck with spinning wheels. “Hold on there, you can’t ....” 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Betty Jo said as she rushed over to them. “Let me take him. He doesn’t understand you’re not up to that yet.”

The hell he wasn’t up to it. Davey was just a kid, and from the expression on his face he didn’t understand not being able to get close. Ennis couldn’t stand against that look, wide-eyed and innocent. It had been weeks since he’d seen the little one. “No, he’s okay. I just ....” Ennis reached around the boy and hauled him up onto the left side of his lap, working not to grunt with the effort. If he could hold a grown man on him like he had the night before, then he could sure take the boy’s weight. Right away Davey quieted, leaned his head against Ennis’s shoulder, and stuck his thumb in his mouth. 

Ennis flicked his thumb against the little one’s chin, feeling warmth at the boy’s trusting, slack form against him. “Have you been busy this morning?” he asked. “Seems like maybe you should just sit here with me while your mom goes to work.” 

“Oh, he’s been running all over the ranch this morning, so it’s no wonder he might be a little tired out,” Betty Jo told him. “Is he all right there? He’s not hurting you, is he?”

“Nah, he’s fine.” Weird, how holding her son seemed like some sort of shield against Betty Jo, when Ennis knew there wasn’t really one needed. Still, he felt better with the boy between the two of them. 

Betty Jo swept back to what she’d been doing, and five minutes later she had a tray that she put on the desk chair in front of him. She must have brought it with her, cause there wasn’t any such thing in their kitchen, that was for sure. She pulled a kitchen chair over for her to sit on and keep him company, and then there they were, one of his bosses and him having lunch in the house where he lived with Jack. About as likely as a man being struck by lightning, he supposed. 

She’d made fresh tuna salad with relish and chopped up celery, nothing like Alma used to make, and she’d cut some apples into pieces and put them on a plate too. Ennis eyed that as she sat herself down in front of him. Did she think he was laid that low that he couldn’t bite into a whole apple? But it turned out that was done for Davey, since she said that was the only way he’d eat it. Ennis kept him where he was, perched on half of his lap, and let Betty Jo hand Davey food. Even though the boy spilled some of it on his jeans, that was okay. So long as it wasn’t him spilling on himself in front of BJ. 

“I understand your physical therapist is coming tomorrow,” Betty Jo said with her mouth half full. 

“Yep.”

“You’ll be on your feet in no time.”

Hoped so. “Uh, Betty Jo.”

“Yes?”

He plowed into what he knew he had to say. “It’s real fine of you and Rocky, all the help you gave Jack. Uh, me and Jack. This morning he told me the part you played. I want to say thanks.”

“It’s all right, Ennis. We were happy to help. It’s no more than what you and Jack would do for us if we ran into problems.”

He wasn’t so sure of that, but she didn’t need to know that. He forced himself to go on. This needed to be said no matter how hard it was. “About my job. I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can come back. Want you to know that I’ll understand if you and Rocky decide to .... I mean, I know it can’t be easy at the ranch now, and though I .... See, business is business, and -- ”

She stopped him by leaning forward and putting a hand on his knee. “I know that. And I won’t pretend that things aren’t challenging at the ranch without you. But just like business is business, friendship is friendship, don’t you think?” 

He ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am, but that doesn’t mean -- ”

“You have no reason to be worried about your job, Ennis. We’re keeping it for you for whenever you can come back.” 

No matter what she said, that had better be next week. “I’m grateful.” 

“And we’re grateful for all you’ve done since you came on with us.” He risked a glance up at her. Betty Jo had that look, part smile, part mother-hen, part sorry-you’re-hurt. At least, that’s what he saw. “We feel that employing you has worked out even better than we’d hoped. So we’re not about to let some other ranch around here scoop you up away from us, you hear now?” 

Well, that was flat out ridiculous, so he didn’t say anything to it, though he did nod. But that was a small weight off his back, to know that he didn’t have to worry about the job at least for a little while. He wished that physical therapist would have come today and not tomorrow.

Even without him asking her, Betty Jo started telling him about how things were at the ranch, so he settled back and chewed on his sandwich while listening. Rocky had sold another mare that was past her foaling years and gotten a good price for her too. They’d had to call in the vet to have a look at one of the horses that’d been bred in the summer, and he wasn’t so sure she’d carry the baby all the way to term. Matt was stepping up in a good way to fill in while Ennis was gone and Tag was gone too. Betty Jo was real proud of him. She thought he was growing up well, better than his older brother. 

That was when Betty Jo stopped talking. She took a bite of apple and looked sad, like the bottom had dropped out of her life. Ennis wondered if she thought she’d been dealt a bad hand, what with one son born not right, even if he was a cute rascal, and the other son on drugs. 

“How’s Tag doing?”

She sighed. “Not so well.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, he’s not cooperating. We were supposed to be able to call him last weekend, and maybe even go visit him in a few weeks, but the center suspended his phone privileges. So I haven’t talked with him since ... ” She looked up at him, and her blue eyes were all washed out, like he could see right through them. “I guess since before you got hurt.” 

“Sorry to hear that.”

She wiped at one eye and Ennis looked away. Seemed like everybody around him got to crying lately. “It’s hard. I don’t ... I don’t have any chance to try to redo the mistakes I made with him, or hear how he’s feeling from his own mouth, or ... anything. It’s like he’s dropped off the face of the Earth, but I can’t pretend that I don’t love him.” 

“He knows that.”

“Does he?” Betty Jo asked like everything around her was gray. “When you were seventeen, did you know your mother loved you? Or would you be willing to admit it?”

Ennis shrugged. “Don’t know. I lost her years before that.” 

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” BJ spent a couple seconds staring mainly at Davey in a lost sort of way, but then she took in a breath and started picking up plates and napkins. “Well, we just go on, right? Tag will settle in and maybe we’ll get to see him soon.”

“That’d be good,” Ennis told her, though he wondered. 

Betty Jo went back to the kitchen, leaving him with a snoozing Davey and an aching leg. It really did do better when he had it propped up. Except of course he couldn’t do that when visitors were in the house. He wondered when they’d leave. 

“What’s this?” he heard BJ say from over by the refrigerator. He glanced at her and saw that she was standing in front of the open freezer door. “The venison I brought you during the summer; you haven’t eaten any of it at all. It’s still here.”

“Uh ....” He couldn’t very well tell her that every time he saw the packages wrapped in white freezer paper, with what was inside labeled in his boss’s handwriting, it reminded him of how he’d been dumb enough to hit that deer. He hated that he’d done that. The deer kept showing up in his dreams too, and they weren’t good dreams either. He wished the Buckminsters had kept all the deer meat for themselves and never shoved it on him. “Uh ....”

“Don’t you like venison?” BJ had one of the packages in her hand, and she was looking over at him like a disappointed child. Either that or she was gonna heave it at his head.

“It’s not that,” he let her know. He liked it even better than elk meat. “Just ... haven’t had the time to .... Lost those with everything else in there.”

“If you and Jack don’t like it, then I could take it -- ”

“No, no, it’ll be good now the cold weather’s here. Almost here.”

Betty Jo wrinkled her brow at him and looked doubtful, but she put the deer meat back where she’d got it. “There’s a roast here,” she reminded him, her head in the freezer, “and some sausage. Floyd makes the best venison sausage. And there’s -- ”

What was she doing rooting around in his stuff anyway? His and Jack’s stuff. “I know,” he said, real impatient and sort of sharp, and then he wished he hadn’t said anything, because she went silent then. 

It didn’t take long after that for her to finish whatever she was doing. She came over to him and looked down at Davey asleep in his arms. “I’ll take him and go now,” she whispered. 

It was easy to transfer him, since she did all the work of lifting and taking on the boy’s weight. That was one more sign of how low Ennis had sunk. 

“I left a few casseroles for you and Jack in the freezer,” she said. “So he won’t have to worry about dinner the next few days. Turkey tetrazzini for tonight is in the fridge. Just heat for forty minutes at three fifty.” She cocked her head and looked down at him, hefting Davey closer against her. “Should I come back in a few days? Or ....” She bit her lip and looked away.

Ennis didn’t know why him and Betty Jo sometimes got crosswise like this. But it seemed to him she always tried too hard and got up in his business. Bossy, nosey, interfering, waltzing in here like it was her name on the lease and not his. 

He doubted, though, that Jack felt the same way. It could be that Jack had put her up to showing up today to check on him, to shove lunch down his gullet whether he wanted it or not. 

“Sure,” he said. “That would be okay.” 

She nodded without saying anything more, and then out the door she went, taking the boy with her. 

***** 

It was shameful how he watched the clock when it got dark outside, as Ennis waited for Jack to come home. He’d managed to put the turkey dish in the oven, and it smelled pretty good as it warmed up, but it got to be six o’clock and then six fifteen. He frowned, and then he hauled himself over to the kitchen sink, leaned on it, and looked out the window into the darkness. That was a dumb thing to do. Nothing in their side yard would show him that Jack was safe and not being smacked down on the side of the road by some tough guy. It was half an hour after Jack had said he’d get home. Ennis turned away from the view of nothing outside. 

Jack breezed in at six-forty, calling for Ennis even before he got the door open. “Hell!” he said as he slammed the door shut, and all sorts of bad weather flickered across his face. “Corliss got me just as I was walking out, wanting a full review of next month’s schedule and asking how I expected to fill up the pens. Can you believe that, right at the end of the day? Everybody else left. It was just him and me, and he kept asking questions. I couldn’t let him know I had somebody waiting for me, depending on me to get home.” 

He jammed his hat onto the hook on the wall and said, “I hate that I can’t say. Really fucking hate it. And I wish he’d leave me alone. Some days it isn’t worth it to get out of bed.” But then he turned to where Ennis was regarding him with one hand on the counter. He looked at him as if only seeing him right then. “Hey,” Jack said. “You’re standing on your own real good.”

Jack came up and kissed him, like they generally did at the end of the day, quick and simple. Ennis welcomed something normal to prove not everything had changed. 

“Wait,” Jack said when they parted. “Let’s do this right and proper. I need to get the taste of that man out of my mouth.” 

Jack grabbed him by the back of his head to haul Ennis closer before Ennis had the chance to form any thought except he wasn’t sure he was ready for their version of right and proper, though he hoped to God he was. At least, once their lips connected again, he could hold onto Jack and not fall on his ass. 

Ennis slowly closed his eyes. He wanted to let go of everything that had been holding him down, the whole big list of his worries. He wanted to cast off into the wild, rough seas that had always been him and Jack together. Jack sure could kiss. The man had a tongue he knew how to use. And the sounds he made when their lips were tugging on each other -- that always had got Ennis’s heart to beating faster. Last night, Jack going at it alone, that shouldn’t matter.

But maybe it did matter. Or maybe Ennis’s half-formed fears -- third time now he should’ve got hard and he hadn’t -- were real. 

Jack was really getting into this kiss, tongue and sounds so strong that if this had been a normal day, they’d be hauling each other off to the bed to get serious, even before dinner. Ennis wanted that. He wanted Jack more than anything, and it sure seemed that Jack wanted him. Neither one of them had lost any interest. 

But the interest in and the doing were two separate things. It just wasn’t happening for Ennis, down below. It was like he wasn’t connected there, his dick set off from the rest of his body, his heart, and his brain. 

_Come on, let’s go, let’s go!_ he chanted to himself, and he kissed Jack the best way he knew, even wedged as he was in the corner of the kitchen, grabbing Jack’s jacket in two fists, even trying a little thrust or two, determined to make this work. After the lonely, good-for-nothing day he’d spent, it had to work. If it didn’t work .... What would he have to offer his man?

“Hmmm,” Jack murmured. “You taste good.” And then he sort of brushed his lips against Ennis’s, nothing more, soft, more like an after-fuck kiss with meaning to it. Ennis leaned into it, trying to follow it, to capture Jack’s lips again, cause he wasn’t willing to stop trying, but now Jack was pulling back, turning away, finished with the kiss and with Ennis. 

“Hey,” Jack said. “I smell cooking. You weren’t supposed to do that.” He went over to the stove, grabbed a potholder, bent over, and opened the oven door.

Ennis stared at Jack’s ass. Goddamnit, he .... He needed more time. When he wasn’t all worried from wondering when Jack would come home. A longer kiss, too, not with the counter cutting into his back. Maybe a day or two more at home, so the hospital and his helplessness were far, far away in his memory.

Jack had the casserole out on the stovetop. “You didn’t make this.”

“No,” Ennis said. “That’s not my doing, that’s Betty Jo. She left it this afternoon.”

“Good for her,” Jack said. He pulled down some plates, got some silverware, and started dishing out the food. 

“So,” Ennis said, needing to make conversation to fill up that big worry-space in his chest. “Corliss being an asshole again? You lost a thousand head of cattle or something?”

Jack snorted and dumped their big spoon in the sink. “You name it, he wants me to do it, and it’s never done right.”

“Hope he won’t ask you to stay late all the time now.”

Jack took his time covering the casserole with aluminum foil. Eventually he said, “Well .... I think that might happen a time or two.”

Ennis frowned. He liked Jack home with him. “Business picking up?”

Jack’s shoulders rose and fell. “Something like that, I guess. Sit down now, this looks good enough to eat.” 

They ate, and Ennis figured maybe Betty Jo had learned something since he last tasted her meatballs months before, because it wasn’t half-bad. He sat on the kitchen chair and watched Jack clean up afterward, taking some comfort from things being simple and ordinary, and finding it hard to take his eyes off this good-looking man who lived in the same house with him. They talked some while Jack scraped and washed and dried, and didn’t talk some too. Both were fine for Ennis. After that, Jack found an old pack of cards and proposed a game of gin rummy, since there wasn’t another baseball game on until the next day. Seemed perfect to Ennis. 

Two hours later Jack had racked up the winnings. Every penny in the house, it seemed, was stacked in front of that man who’d come home to him. That was okay for now. Ennis didn’t intend to lose at cards every day of the week, but he didn’t mind seeing Jack smiling fit to beat the band with Corliss Hamilton far from his mind. 

As Ennis was putting the cards back in the pack and Jack was tossing their beer cans in the trash, Jack said, “Tomorrow afternoon the therapist comes, right?” 

“Yep.” 

“You cooperate with her, hear?”

“What makes you think -- ”

Jack came back to the table and leaned on it. “I know you and how you feel about folks coming to the house. You let her do her thing, and in no time you’ll be out working with your horses again.”

“Maybe.” 

“It’ll happen,” Jack said, as if he had a crystal ball. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

He thought he was tired enough now to sleep through anything Jack might do without Ennis being any part of it. Taking a pain pill would likely help too. “Okay.”

Once they were settled with the light off, there was the rustle of sheets and then the touch of Jack’s hand on his arm, just under the elbow, sure, strong fingers curling round him. Ennis covered Jack’s hand with his own and squeezed. It’d been a hell of a twenty-four hours, up and down, over and around, all which ways, but at least it was ending like this, them together in their own bed. 

Except they were supposed to do a lot more than sleep in this bed. Suppose he couldn’t .... Ever ... He swallowed so loud that he was sure Jack heard it. 

“You wake me up if you need any -- ”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. G’night.”

“Night, Jack.”

*****


	12. Feeling Better Than Thinking

Jack struggled from sleeping to waking as if he were pushing against a swift, rushing wind. Finally he jerked up onto his elbows and blinked until his bleary eyes made sense of the green numbers on the clock. Well, damn. It was still hours before he needed to wake up and go to work. 

Jack rolled over onto his side, punched his pillow, tucked his hands under it, and tried to settle down for more sleep. He hadn’t set the alarm because he didn’t want to wake up Ennis in the morning; no matter how Ennis protested, he needed a heap-load of sleep, and rest, and putting his feet up. Jack was sure of it. But not having the alarm to depend on was preying on Jack’s mind. He couldn’t afford to rile Corliss in any way, shape, or form, because things at the feedlot had gone from bad to worse. This was the fourth time he’d jerked awake thinking he needed to get up. 

It would help if he actually closed his eyes, but they were adjusting now. Right next to him was the finest sight in Colfax County: Ennis flat against his pillow in the dimness. In their house. Jack blinked back how that made him feel, so grateful. There’d been those few bad days back in Santa Fe when Jack had wondered if he’d ever see Ennis next to him in bed again. Having Ennis right there, right now, proved to him what the songs that shouted joy were all about. He felt like his heart was about to bust right out of his chest.

He breathed in deeply and curled his fingers so he would keep his hands to himself, though he wished he could crawl on top and wake Ennis with a kiss, not to mention a good poke from a hard dick. Wished they could go at it hot and heavy like usual, wished Ennis would slide into him and pound him from here to kingdom come. And later, afterward, wished they would fall asleep wrapped around each other as they so often did after lovemaking, so that the last thing Jack would take with him into slumber was knowing Ennis was there. 

Soon, they’d get to that soon. But not yet, with Ennis home not even two days. Any fool could tell that it would take time before Ennis was ready for sex. Jack kept his hands to himself, but he couldn’t resist shifting across the sheet, getting closer. 

Ennis was making soft breathing sounds with no sign of any nightmares. Jack wondered if Ennis had dreamed in the hospital and if anybody had been there to wake him up from it. 

He’d never tell Jack if that had happened, though, because Ennis wasn’t ever free with anything that made him look weak. He guarded his pride like it was covered in diamonds and fourteen carat gold. Jack needed to arm wrestle him down to the ground before he’d admit to needing help, and even that didn’t work most of the time. 

Jack let his lips curve into a soft, small smile. That man of his. Damn if he wasn’t the most aggravating soul who’d ever been born, and the soul Jack couldn’t do without. As if he hadn’t already learned that lesson over and over, these past weeks had driven the fact home. 

A small sound brought Jack’s eyes up to Ennis’s face again. He was licking his lips in his sleep, something he did sometimes. Jack stopped thinking about the past and the future and abruptly centered on the here-and-now; he leaned as close as he could get without actually pressing up against Ennis, and watched. Tongue out, just the tip, then over to the corner, out it came some more, and a big swipe from one side to the other of his upper lip. Then a deep breath, Ennis’s bare chest rising and falling, and finally a sigh. 

Jack sighed too. His dick twitched at the thought of what would be sure to send him to dreamland for the rest of the night, but he had to ignore it. They’d get back to the lives they shared between the sheets, but damn it would be a long wait. 

Jack went back to his own pillow and forced himself to close his eyes. In the meantime, Ennis was home, and that was more than good enough. 

*****

He woke again at five-thirty, about right for a change. Ennis was snoring beside him, looking like he was nineteen again, though this time without the cares that had given him the scared dog look that he’d taken up with him to Brokeback. Jack figured he’d work for ten Corlisses at ten feedlots if he could keep giving that to Ennis, and he’d put up with a hundred Corlisses if only he’d see that look of peace when Ennis was awake. He eased out of bed, grabbed the clothes he’d laid out, and padded barefoot and quiet to the bathroom. 

But when he came out from his shower and his shave, hitching up his zipper, there was Ennis holding the pancake turner, standing by the stove. He should’ve set the alarm after all. 

“What are you doing up?” Jack walked behind him and planted a kiss on the back of his neck, gently, because Ennis didn’t look all that steady on his feet. He rested his hands on Ennis’s hips, trying to make that seem part of the always-want-to-touch-you instead of the seems-to-me-you-need-help-standing-up. 

“Thought you could eat a hot breakfast for a change,” Ennis said.

Jack blinked. “That’s real ... . You didn’t have to do that.”

Ennis gave him a look over his shoulder, softer than Jack had seen from him since ... since his birthday and all Ennis had done for him then. “You been doing plenty for me, so maybe I wanted to do something for you this time. Coffee’s ready over there, and these eggs and pancakes are almost done.”

Jack peered down at the stove. “They pale like I like them?”

“Well, sure. I didn’t get up to make you stuff you don’t like. Get going, now, you don’t want to be late for work.”

Jack let him go and backed off. Ennis leaned heavily on the counter as he cooked. Jack shook his head and looked around for the walker that had been sent home from the hospital. It was still stuck in a corner of the front room. 

The coffee was waiting for him, so he poured some and sat down in front of the silverware already on the table, keeping an eagle eye out the whole time. Ennis turned carefully, basically on one foot, and shuffled toward him carrying the food. He moved like an old man, and Jack winced inside to see it. 

“You think you should be up on your feet so much already? You don’t want to tire yourself out.” 

“I’ve done enough sitting on my ass and snoozing,” Ennis growled. “Here.” Ennis put the plate down in front of him, none too gently, and turned away. “Might not be able to do much, but there’s gotta be something I’m good for. I can -- ” 

Right then Ennis’s leg let it be known that it wasn’t so good for walking, because it didn’t keep going when the rest of Ennis did. He started to topple over, and Jack was out of his seat fast. 

He caught Ennis’s elbow about the time Ennis took a hop on his working left leg. Between the two of them at least Ennis didn’t fall. Instead he bounced against the cabinet, Jack grabbed him around the waist, Ennis reached for two fistfuls of Jack’s shirt, and they ended up skittering across the linoleum before they stopped, face to face, finally in balance. 

For a grand total of about five seconds, Ennis leaned on him, slack and heavy, the way he should’ve been doing from the moment they’d got home. That’s what Jack was there for, right? But then Ennis straightened. 

“Fuck!” he said, heartfelt, looking off to the side. 

Jack wanted to holler _Don’t you have the sense you were born with?_ Instead, he let out a chuckle. “I thought you said you weren’t ever going to dance with me. Changed your mind?”

“Nope.” 

“You should give me a chance sometime.” 

“Like that’s gonna happen.” Ennis moved within Jack’s hold, still with his head turned, looking away. “You gonna let me go?”

“Let you go?” Instead, Jack eased closer. “Can’t say that’s on my mind,” he said softly, his lips close to the honey hair that had darkened with the years. That was a temptation he couldn’t resist, so he closed the distance and kissed the head of his pancake-making man.

He listened for the hint of a smile in Ennis’s voice but couldn’t really hear one, as he said, “Come on, Jack. I got things to do.” 

“You do?” Jack asked, still quiet like in a church. He let his hands drift away from Ennis’s waist, one higher up, one lower down, not making any attempt to hide how interested his dick was. He couldn’t help it, holding Ennis like he was, even though he didn’t feel any hardness coming back at him. “If you’re making a list, I can add to that,” he said with meaning and a small push of his hips.

Ennis pulled away just enough to put air between them, instead of front pressed to front. “Oh, yeah? What list?” he challenged, finally looking up at Jack, with a fire in his eye like he was newly determined to take on the whole world. 

“There’s laundry that needs doing,” Jack said with wickedness in his voice. “And the light bulb in Bobby’s room blew out. Make sure you climb up on the stepladder and change that. We’ve sprung a leak in the bathroom faucet, it’s dripping and -- ”

Ennis stopped him by holding a hand flat over his mouth. “Like hell. That’s just you trying to get out of doing work around here. Now, you planning on waltzing with me to the feedlot, or you gonna let me stand on my own two feet?” 

Jack stepped back so Ennis stood free. He watched, ready to act like a safety net again, as Ennis shifted weight onto his bad leg. 

“All right?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. You want some more pancakes?” 

“Nope, I’m fine.” 

He sat back down and started shoveling in the food as fast as he could, because he had a hunch that Ennis wouldn’t even think about using the walker until after Jack left and he couldn’t be seen. Ennis was running a cloth over the stove, standing tilted to one side, when Jack said from around a full mouth, “I’ll call you today at noon if I can.” 

“What, you think you need to check up on me?”

“Nope.” Jack swallowed and wiped his lips with a napkin. “I don’t care a rat’s ass about you.” 

“You are so full of shit, Twist.” 

“No more than you. I’ll try to call.”

A small silence that Jack noted. And then Ennis said, “Okay. Sounds good.” 

When he was ready to leave, Ennis had made his way to the front room desk, where he sat awkwardly with the bad leg thrust out. Jack leaned over, noting that Ennis was writing a check to the electricity co-op in his slow, steady way. “Don’t overdo today,” he said, his arms braced against the surface of the desk to either side of his stubborn man. 

Ennis sighed. “Don’t know that I can, the way things are.”

“No trying to change that light bulb. You can leave it until next week or the week after that.”

“I hear you. No light bulb changing.”

“And don’t throw the therapist out either.”

“Ain’t you that’s got to talk to her.” 

Jack knew how hard that would be on Ennis, who’d already faced so many people at the hospital who knew about the two of them. He’d come home to sanctuary, their house, only to have it be forced open again by another stranger. 

Helplessly, because there wasn’t much he could do to make things better, he said, “She’ll help you, you know that.”

Ennis put down the pen. “I know. It’s about time I got started on getting better. Time for you to go.” 

Jack pressed his cheek against Ennis’s, holding it, needing more. He waited, and then Ennis turned and their lips met in a simple kiss, the way it’d been in the best of their days. For a moment there, though, it wasn’t so simple, and Ennis was putting more into it, pressed harder like he meant it. Or maybe it was just Jack’s imagination.

“Don’t you fall in any of that cow shit at the lot,” Ennis said quietly, not pulling back much. “Watch where you walk.”

“I will. Thanks for the breakfast.”

“At least it’s something I can do around here.”

As Jack drove through the dark in the hour before sunrise, he felt the pull behind him over his left shoulder, to the northwest, to home, as if there was a rope stretching between him and Ennis that got longer and longer, that narrowed and tightened but never broke.

*****

When Jack pulled his pick-up into the feedlot spot, the weak autumn sun was starting to show its light over the flat horizon. The air tickled his nose, cool enough to be noticed, promising a hard winter, maybe, with snowdrifts and wicked winds. December, only six weeks away, would mark their first winter in the valley. Already the nights were plenty cold.

As he took the key from the ignition, Andy pulled up next to him and got out of his car right away. The man waved and smiled, and then he went around to the back of the Chevy and opened the trunk. “Hey, Jack, come over here.” 

Jack obliged -- he was still being careful around Andy even though deep down he thought he had reason to trust him. Andy indicated a cardboard box in the trunk with a wave of his hand. _Quaker State Motor Oil,_ it said.

Jack cocked his head to the side. “What have you got there?”

“They’re for you. From Carolyn.”

Jack frowned. “For me?”

“Uh-huh. A lasagna, one pot roast she finished this morning with all the fixings, and a meatloaf.”

“What? She cooked all that? Damn it, Andy! She’s not even supposed to know we need helping!”

“But you do, right?” Andy said real calm. “You do need helping. We can’t ignore that. I told Carolyn how you’ve been working late, and she figured out that you don’t have time to make food with Ennis laid up like he is, so she -- ”

Jack reached up and tried to force the trunk lid closed, but Andy resisted him. “You said you wouldn’t tell anybody about Ennis and me,” Jack gritted out.

Andy gave up and Jack brought the lid down with a bang. “Of course I told Carolyn. She’s my wife. You can’t expect me not to tell my wife about ... . Wait a minute. You really didn’t expect me to share this with her?”

Yeah, that’s what Jack had thought back in the hospital, that Andy had kept his secret. When was Andy gonna get it? This wasn’t some go-to-church problem you could find solutions to by turning pages in the Good Book. This was his life. Wordlessly, Jack shook his head. He couldn’t believe this guy.

“I share everything with Carolyn. It’s what marriage is all about, that sort of honesty. Don’t you ... .” He gave Jack a measuring look, one he didn’t appreciate. “Don’t you tell Ennis everything?”

“He’s just out of the hospital!” 

“He doesn’t know about -- ”

He didn’t give Andy time to finish that sentence, because the list of what Ennis didn’t know about was getting longer than Jack had ever imagined. “Listen, you run your life your way, and I’ll run mine my way, got it?” 

Maybe another man would have been put off by the harsh way Jack said that or by the way he stood rigid and frowning at his young boss. But not Andy. 

“Sure, Jack,” he said in a soothing way, guaranteed to raise anybody’s blood pressure. “You’re right. Everybody has their own ways of doing things. But I think now I’ve found what’s different between your relationship and a real marriage.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Carolyn and me, we’re one flesh, one blood. We don’t keep secrets from one another. If that upsets you, I’m sorry, but I thought when I said I wouldn’t tell anyone you were homosexual, you knew it wouldn’t include her.” 

Jack rolled his eyes, not bothering to hide it. “Yeah, well, I ... .” He forced himself to stop. Early morning at the feedlot and him didn’t get along; there were too many surprises. “Look, the damage’s been done. Just make sure she knows not to -- ”

“She knows not to talk, Jack. You can trust her. She’s been praying for you every day and for Ennis too, each morning. Now, should we get these trays out of my truck?”

Andy pointed out there wasn’t any sense in having Carolyn’s efforts wasted by having the food spoil, so they decided to take the aluminum casserole containers out of the box and put them in the office refrigerator, next to a bottle of ketchup and an old bag of apples. Jack didn’t bother to say that he was going to have to go into some song-and-dance to explain the food, since Ennis was living with the illusion that Andy thought him and Jack were only friends and for sure not sharing the same house. One more thing he was keeping from that man.

After that, Jack kept his head down over his desk when Marge came in, when James’s authoritative stride brought him into the office -- he asked if Corliss was there yet and then left -- and when two of the cowboys came in for coffee. He was reaching for the phone around nine o’clock when the door opened and then closed, and from the steady, heavy footsteps he knew the big boss had arrived. They stopped when they were even with his desk. 

“You’re making sales calls today, aren’t you?” Corliss asked.

Jack looked up at him through the slanting sunlight with caution, like he did almost all the time now, though he tried to hide it. Behind him, Marge typed away furiously, and over by the front counter Andy chewed on a pencil as he tried to add a column of numbers. Everybody got busy when Corliss was on the prowl. 

“I sure am,” Jack said, trying to sound efficient. “Like I told you last night when we were going over my files, I’m headed over to the Murphy place right after noon, and then I figured if I had time I’d hit that ranch over by -- ”

“I have the afternoon free,” Corliss interrupted him. “I’ll go with you after we have lunch together.” 

Corliss didn’t wait for him to say _sure, okay,_ or _no, I don’t want you with me, you’ll scare off the prospects_ or even _I quit._ He turned on his heel and went to his office. Before he sat down, Jack saw the man glance out and give him a weird smile. 

Shit. 

They drove in the Jeep with Corliss at the wheel. The first half hour, Jack sat in the uncomfortable passenger seat with his arms tensed, but Corliss didn’t talk much beyond how inflation was the biggest enemy the country had and that he didn’t trust the Republicans much more than the Democrats. Jack was careful to agree with what he said, seeing Diego naked, stiff, and dead in his mind’s eye. 

Eventually Jack propped his elbow on the open window and stared out at the empty expanse of land, at a dry gully etched deep. Of course he hadn’t been able to call Ennis at lunch time. His life was like that. Now he wondered if the therapist had shown up yet and what had happened when she did. Would Ennis get all stubborn or would he listen to what she had to say? That man needed to listen to her or he’d never get better, and they’d never get back to rolling around together. Damn but he wanted to get them skin to skin. Ennis naked was the best -- 

“What’s the matter with you?” Corliss’s voice, as level as the high plains around them, broke into his thoughts. 

Jack used everything he’d learned in the past twenty years of pretending in front of Lureen, L.D., the population of Childress, and Ennis too, not to jump in his seat or even swallow like the guilty man he was. 

“Nothing.” He turned an innocent face to the man who really did have his balls to squeeze any time he wanted to. Or do stuff a hell of a lot worse.

“You must have something on your mind.” 

Jack shifted against the seat. “Guess the ribs are giving me trouble today.” Was he believed?

Corliss nodded and turned his attention back to the road. 

Daniel Murphy’s ranch hugged the Colorado state line, west of Raton, spreading across one of those godforsaken stretches of land that could support cattle and nothing else. The Sangres were a distant smudge on the horizon, but pronghorn antelope had plenty of rolling terrain to share with the livestock. The Jeep jolted over five miles of dirt road to get to Murphy’s house and outbuildings, and that part of the trip didn’t do Jack’s ribs any favors. He’d been healing okay, but that was under normal circumstances and normal life, and being out for an afternoon with Corliss Hamilton didn’t qualify. Jack wondered a couple of times if Corliss steered deliberately into ruts. 

Murphy himself met them at the door, a red-haired drink-of-water who’d always treated Jack right. He wasn’t eager to change his ways, which was why this was the third time Jack had visited the ranch, but both times before he’d clapped Jack on the back and ended their time together by offering a shot of Jack Daniels in the ranch house study. He never minded taking the man up on his offer. The two of them were engaged in a friendly competition as to how long Jack would need to dangle the hook in front of the man’s face, asking for his business, before he finally gave in to the inevitable. 

But this time Murphy greeted him with a frown, flicking a glance at Corliss that was anything but neighborly. He didn’t open the door wide but stepped out onto the porch instead, shutting the door behind him. 

“Didn’t you get that message I left an hour ago? Said I couldn’t talk to you today.” 

Jack stuck both his hands in his back pockets. “I guess that one missed us after we left. Sorry about that. I know it’s hard to give up your time when you’re so busy, but do you think you could spare us a few minutes anyway? I brought my boss out to see you today.” 

Murphy looked behind him back toward the house and then shrugged. “Boss, huh? I guess it won’t harm anything if I show you the spread.” 

Jack said they’d like that, sure. The three of them took off with dust trailing behind them in an ancient GMC with a crew cab, that didn’t have any shocks left to speak of. Corliss insisted that Jack sit up front next to the rancher. That meant he felt Corliss sitting behind him like he had a gun shoved against his spine.

As they rode along, Jack did his best, giving his spiel of how it made sense for any rancher to let the lot finish up the final feeding and fattening of the cattle before they were shipped off. He reeled off plenty of numbers with dollar signs in front of them, but it wasn’t anything that the rancher hadn’t heard before. He did it not for the guy next to him but for the guy behind him, so Corliss could tell close up that he knew his business. 

Since Corliss wasn’t the type to say “good job,” he figured he’d never know if he made an impression. After a while Murphy started to ask questions that he could answer, and that kept him from feeling like a complete jackass. Corliss joined in the conversation, and by the time an hour had passed they’d seen all of the spread that was important. 

When they approached the front of the house, somebody was clearly waiting for them, stepping down from the porch and looking them in. At first Jack thought he was seeing a girl, maybe because of the way the hips were canted to the side, or the graceful, almost tripping steps. But it wasn’t any girl.

Jack risked a glance at Murphy and could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. It was plain that Murphy had hustled them away from the house so they wouldn’t meet his son. 

Because it had to be his son, as beautiful a young, flame-haired gay man as Jack had ever had the pleasure to stumble across, and one who made no secret of how different he was either. From the skin-tight jeans that no self-respecting cattle man would wear to the exaggerated way he said “pleased to meet you,” when his father, his face purple with suppressed rage, introduced them. 

The son only wanted to tell his father that he was driving into Raton, and to ask if he wanted him to pick up anything while he was there. After Murphy wordlessly shook his head no, Liam was off with the rumble of another old engine. Corliss stared at the truck slowly disappearing into the afternoon glare, while old man Murphy found his boots of real interest. Jack stood between them and glanced from one to the other, not knowing what to say. 

One thing he was pretty sure of, though, was that the boy knew exactly the stir he’d made, and that he loved it. There were types like that. Back in his post-Ennis’s-divorce days, he would have followed red-haired temptation and made hay while the sun shone. Not now, though. 

“He’s at school in California. Berkley. He got home around noontime to visit his mother,” Murphy finally said to break the silence. “Well, come on into the house, no sense in you standing out here.” 

In the next fifteen minutes or so, Jack didn’t get the contract that he’d brought with him signed, even if they did, in the end, drink some whiskey, but one thing meeting the members of the Murphy family did was loosen Corliss’s tongue as they headed back to Cimarron. 

“You drive back,” Corliss said as they emerged from the house, and Jack didn’t give him any argument. Thirty seconds after Jack had put the truck in gear, Corliss said, “You can cross this place off your prospect list. Don’t come out here again; it’d be wasted time.” 

Jack turned the wheel to take them around a rut in the road and flicked a glance at his boss. Corliss was gripping the side of the Jeep’s open window. “What? I thought we were close to -- ”

“You don’t think he’d sign a contract with us after we met that boy of his, do you? The man’s probably headed for his gun rack right now.”

“I don’t think he’d do anything dumb,” Jack said.

“Dumb?”

“You know. Kill himself.” 

“Why would he do that? He’s not the one who’s queer. But I can’t imagine the shame. I’d kill any son of mine who was a faggot.”

Jack tried not to consider his own father. He knew how he was thought of in Lightning Flat. Had his father come close to heading for the gun rack when Jack was younger, like that August day he’d come home from Brokeback full of the boy he’d met on the mountain? 

“Maybe not if Liam stayed away in California,” Jack ventured. “I imagine old man Murphy’s okay with it if -- ”

“Okay with it?” Corliss turned in his seat to look more directly at Jack, which pretty much was the opposite of where Jack ever wanted his attention. “How could he be okay with that disaster of a son? That sorry excuse for a man?”

“I know, I know, but I doubt that -- ”

“The boy doesn’t deserve to live.”

“Well, I don’t think -- ”

“What are you saying here, Jack?”

“Nothing,” he managed. “Nothing at all. I’m just not too crazy about murder.”

Fuck! He hadn’t meant to say that. Jack fixed his eyes on the road and hoped Corliss wouldn’t make much of it. Besides, Diego hadn’t been murdered by Corliss or James, but by whoever had shot him at the border. 

Maybe. It’d crossed Jack’s mind to wonder, but he’d always pushed the thought away. 

“Faggots are a blot on the rest of mankind,” Corliss said as if he was handing down one of the stone tablets to Moses.

Jack swallowed against the drying in his mouth and said what he was expected to say, in truth what he’d said a time or two over the years when there wasn’t any other way out. “Yep, they sure are.”

“There’s a woman in my congregation, every Sunday in the community petition time she prays that her son will change. Good thing her husband died before the kid showed it, or he certainly would’ve taken matters into his own hands.” 

Was that the way Christian men were supposed to act? At least according to Corliss they were. A hundred responses crowded into Jack’s mind that he wished he could say to Corliss, but he was spooked now. Sweat tickled his palms, and Jack forced himself not to wipe them on his pants. Showing weakness in front of Corliss was a real bad idea, like showing strength probably was too. 

But ... . Was this talking to him a warning? Did Corliss have a clue about him? 

“Guess that boy won’t ever appreciate a fine woman,” Jack said as offhand as he could. “Not like my little gal over in Santa Fe.”

Corliss let out a puff of laughter, short and sharp. “I guess he wouldn’t. But I’m glad to hear that you do, Jack.”

“Oh, yeah. She’s got the hands of an angel.” He thought of Lureen and the few other women he’d slept with from long ago, and he didn’t know who the hell he was talking about. He didn’t want any soft hands and never had. He’d always craved the sure, strong touch of a man. Jack didn’t know what to say after that, so he kept his mouth shut. 

It wasn’t until he turned the Jeep off the dirt road and onto the main highway that Corliss talked again. “Take us back to the lot. I don’t have time for that second call you were going to make after all.”

“Sure thing.”

“And here. Take this.”

Jack looked down at where Corliss was offering a sealed envelope like the one he’d been maneuvered into giving to Hugo. He slowly raised his gaze to look into Corliss’s unyielding eyes. Like brown stone, they were.

“For services rendered, and for services yet to come.”

He didn’t have any choice, did he? Without a word Jack took it from him and tucked it under his seat. 

*****

_Jack should have managed to avoid it. He was usually expert at that, spending longer than needed at school, out with the cattle, or running an errand for his mama. He should have shut his mouth, should have turned aside, should have been able to ward it off. But fresh off Brokeback, he was like an animal with his skin flayed: everything inside exposed and hurting so bad. When he got home to Lightning Flat, he talked about the man he’d met on the mountain to hold off the pain._

_Oh, no, Mama, he’s not that old, he’s my age. Best rider I’ve ever seen, even better than Hardeman on his sorrel mare. You should see Ennis in a saddle. Oh, that’s right, his name is Ennis. Peculiar name, but it suits him. He’s quiet like. But special, not like anybody else I know. Tall, yeah, and has a real tuneful voice. We used to sing once the sun went down. Sometimes that was the only way I could get him to open his mouth, leastways in the beginning, back in May. Those were real good nights. We sang all your old hymns that I could remember. Ennis’s voice ... . And the way he holds the reins ... . And he sure does know his way around a campfire, cooks real fine. Halfway through we switched who was going up with the sheep at night, and I stayed by the camp, but I can’t cook like he can. Ennis never ... ._

_It was the look on his mama’s face that warned him, a split second before it happened, that his daddy was coming up behind him. Like a fool, he turned, and so he took the fist square on his jaw. Down he went to the worn plank floor, his head spinning._

_Think, Jackie, his mama had said to him a hundred times. Think before you do your crazy things or say your crazy words._

_But Jack felt better than he thought. He’d always been that way. Those few seconds talking to his mama had eased him inside some, so that he wasn’t remembering how Ennis had walked away without a word or how he’d be married to his Alma soon. Instead he’d been remembering the man he’d found up on the mountain and all they’d discovered together there._

_He’d felt better for maybe thirty seconds, and that was all that would ever be given him, because he never got what he needed and, no matter how he tried, Jack never did anything right._

_He blinked and looked up at his daddy looming over him, trying for some reason to see him clearly through the blurriness, when Jack usually spent time trying not to see him at all._

_“Shut up!” Daddy roared. “I know what you are! I know, you good-for-nothing piece of shit. You don’t have to rub my nose in it.”_

_The sourness that lived all year long on his father’s face twisted into a once-in-a-lifetime storm, into the devil, into bitterness and despair and real hate. He looked down at Jack and lifted his foot, planting it firmly on Jack’s chest. Jack wondered if his daddy would kill him. Seemed he wanted to. The way he was feeling right then, Jack wouldn’t stop him._

_“My only son,” Jack’s father gritted out as he put all his weight on that foot and twisted it, like he was trying to gouge out Jack’s heart with his heel. “You are my only son and my only child. God help me.”_

_Jack gasped because he couldn’t breathe, and he heard his mother gasp too, but she didn’t say anything. She never did._

_Spit sprayed across his eyes and nose, the heavy boot on his chest lifted, and Daddy walked away. The door slammed behind him._

_Slowly, Jack pushed himself up so he sat on the floor. The weight of the world was on him now, and he didn’t have the energy to get up on his feet or even wipe his face dry._

_His father hated him, his mother wouldn’t help him, he was queer, and he would never see Ennis again._

*****

Two hours later and the clock had inched its way forward until it said five-thirty. Jack had been counting the minutes, itching to get home quick as he could, but he didn’t dare make a move until after Corliss had left. Seemed everybody else felt the same, because the three of them -- Jack, Andy, and Marge -- were working like the sun was rising, not setting. Jack ached from the bumpy ride he’d had that day, in more ways than one. 

Corliss came out of his office, and Jack sneaked him a peek, but he didn’t have his jacket on yet so he wasn’t leaving. He headed for the corner where the coffee machine was, poured himself a cup, stood there as he took a sip, and then opened the refrigerator. 

“What’s this?”

He stood frowning down at the foil-wrapped containers Andy and Jack had stacked there that morning. With the packet of cash sitting heavy on his mind, Jack had forgotten all about them. 

“What’s this doing here?” Corliss asked the office at large.

Andy showed wild, wide eyes; he wasn’t going to be any help. Jack slowly got to his feet and started walking in the boss’s direction, trying to come up with some reasonable explanation.

“Oh, that’s mine,” Marge said with a nervous blinking of her eyes, nothing different from any other time she talked to Corliss. She pushed her chair back, heaved herself up, and went over to the refrigerator, her well-worn flat shoes making a slapping noise against the floor. Jack stopped in his tracks.

“Why would you put this here?” Corliss asked, his voice sharp and suspicious.

“It’s for my friend Rosemary,” Marge said with a strained smile pasted across her homely face. “She’s laid up after her operation. Women’s problems, you know. She got home yesterday, so I thought I’d help her out and bring her -- ”

“All right, all right, but why is it here?”

Marge darted forward and picked up the container on top, a big tray that she didn’t handle too well. “Sorry, sorry, Mister Hamilton, I was going to bring them over to her on my way home tonight, so I thought it would be -- ”

“Get it out of here,” Corliss said quietly, calmly as only he could say. “Office equipment for office needs only, hear me?”

“Oh, yes, sir. I’ll take these outside to my car.”

“See that you do.” Corliss turned back to his office without looking at her again. 

Marge stood frozen in front of the refrigerator, her hands full. Jack could practically see her heart beating under the folds of her faded cotton blouse. He wasn’t feeling much different.

“Hey,” he said, as nice as he could, “let me help you with those.” He finally got his feet to move. 

He lifted up the two cartons still in the fridge and led her outside. Her green Chevy Gremlin, at least ten years old and with a sizable dent on the driver’s side, was parked next to his truck. Without saying anything he opened up his passenger side door, leaned over, and put what he was carrying on the floor. 

When he turned and took the other casserole from her, he said, “Thanks. I appreciate you covering for me. How’d you know I ... .” He left it hanging, not knowing how much more to say.

“I guessed. I guess a lot, but everybody thinks I’m the stupid woman in the office. I’m not. Or at least not as dumb as Mister Hamilton thinks I am. He thinks I don’t even read what I type, or that I never see what he has spread out on his desk.” Indignation turned her face pink. 

“Marge, I never thought you were -- ”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m used to it. And listen, I might know other things, but I don’t know what this food is all about, and I don’t want to know.”

“Then why did you -- ”

“It’s us against him, isn’t it?” she asked, looking up into his face with nothing but earnest truth. “If there are sides in that office, I want to be on your side. Not Corliss’s side. Or I want to be on whatever side isn’t his.” 

“Marge ... . Thanks. You’re a good woman.”

She pulled on the hem of her blue sweater. “You don’t have to sound so surprised, Jack.”

*****

Jack was the last one out of the office. Friday night, the temperature already cooling, the shadows from the lowering sun already making themselves known, and Corliss had kept them working for no reason past six o’clock. He’d be even later getting home than he had the night before. He locked the door of the double-wide behind him, though it seemed to him that any determined man could find a way to get in, if he was crazy enough to want to.

Once in his truck, he zipped up his jacket and watched Marge pull away in her Gremlin. Corliss was a trail of dust up to the highway when Jack pulled out the thick envelope he really didn’t want. He’d made sure nobody else saw it; what would Andy think? Maybe he was being paid for services yet to come too. And a new problem: what would Marge think? He wouldn’t even consider what Ennis would think.

Five hundred dollars tickled his fingers as he flipped through the bills, counting. Tens and twenties. Some were old, some new, all of them smelling that sweet smell that the banks sprayed on money sometimes. He rubbed his hands on the upholstery to get rid of it. 

On the drive home, nobody was fishing the stream; it was too cold. Soon enough it would get a lot colder. Jack pursed his lips with the thought. With the winter coming on, Ennis wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with his horses, even when he got better so he could walk okay. He’d be forced inside more often, and there wouldn’t be the daylight he was used to after work. More time in the house with Jack, time for talking over dinner and arguing over football, time for card playing and lovemaking. 

That was something Jack could set his thoughts on instead of his troubles. He leaned forward and turned on the radio. A couple minutes later the truck reached an open patch on the road, he accelerated to fifty, and Jack thought: _Ennis is waiting on me._ Despite damn Corliss, he began to whistle. 

When Jack managed to wedge open the door to the house with the toe of his shoe -- because his hands were full of the dinners -- Ennis was at the kitchen table with his head on his folded arms, sound asleep. As Jack watched he jerked awake, straightened against the chair back, and turned with a frown toward the noise Jack was making by shutting the door with his hip. 

“What the hell?” he growled, his words coming out sleep-slurred as he blinked at Jack.

“Hey,” Jack said, not wanting to say anything about him snoozing. 

Ennis swiped at his eyes. “Hey yourself.” 

With his arms full, he didn’t have much choice but to go right to the refrigerator. He dumped the containers on the counter, opened the fridge door, and bent to see where he could shove Carolyn’s ill-considered gift. “So how did things go today?” he asked. 

“Okay,” came Ennis’s voice from behind him. 

“Just okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. What’s all that you got?”

Jack began to move a dozen bottles of beer and a jar of pickles out of the way. “I got these at lunchtime. More dinners. Some of the Cimarron ladies were having a sale.” 

“Ain’t those usually bake sales? Besides, we don’t need any of that stuff.”

“It can’t hurt, can it?”

“I don’t like eating other people’s food. We can feed ourselves.”

“Sure we can, but just for now -- ”

“How much did you pay for all that? We ain’t rolling in the big bucks, you know.” 

The bills stuffed in his pocket would’ve bought a lot more food than they could eat in a month. “They didn’t cost too much.” 

“Yeah, well, you don’t have any sense when it comes to money.”

Jack shoved the last casserole on the shelf and turned to finish up the lie. The quick anger in him wanted to say he sure did have money-sense, that he was the one who’d be paying Ennis’s hospital bill, but that would be plain mean, and he wouldn’t do it. “I got lasagna, meatloaf, and ... . Can’t remember the other one. So how’d it go today?” 

Ennis frowned and picked up a pen; it looked like he might’ve been set up to write a letter. “I already told you, okay.” 

Jack draped his jacket on the back of his chair and dropped into it with a tired sigh. He scratched the top of his head and said, “You going to give me any details? What’d you do? Was it tough to do? You get along with her okay?”

Ennis looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of him as if he was about to write something important on it. The silence between them lengthened. 

Jack pursed his lips and blew out air in frustration. “Do I have to stand on my head before you let me know anything?”

“You ain’t never been able to stand on your head, Jack Twist.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Ennis’s fingers moved restlessly across the page. “Yeah. I’d like to see you try.”

“Maybe I can and you don’t know.”

Ennis looked up at him with a glimmer in his eyes at last. “You’d fall on your ass, and I’d need to call the county ambulance.”

“Don’t make fun of that. I already lived through that kind of emergency, and there wasn’t anything funny going on. So, what’s for dinner tonight?”

Ennis sent a sudden, panicked look over toward the oven, and Jack looked too. There on top of the stove was an aluminum-foil covered dish, one of those from Betty Jo, he supposed. He sniffed and didn’t smell anything. 

“Guess I didn’t get that cooked,” Ennis said in a mumble that Jack, even used to Ennis’s ways as he was, could barely hear. 

Damn. And Jack was hungry too. “Well, shit, Ennis. Why the -- ”

Ennis slapped his hands on the table, both of them, loud enough to startle Jack into a jump. “Cause I forgot, okay?” His voice got louder. “Cause I fell asleep! Cause I ain’t good for anything, not even feeding you like I’m your fucking wife!”

Jack held his hands up. Ennis sure had gone off like a rocket. “Okay, okay, nobody ever said that -- ”

“Ah, the hell with it, I don’t give a damn.” Ennis lurched to his feet, grabbing the chair for balance. One step, then two toward the back room, and Jack sat there and watched him. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

“There’s a ballgame on tonight, right? I’m gonna go watch it. At least I can do that.”

He took a few more tottering steps, and Jack wasn’t going to sit there and let him fall over. He got up and went to Ennis’s side. Though Ennis tried to push him away when he put his arm around Ennis’s waist, to help hold him up, it wasn’t done with much determination. 

“You asshole,” Jack said, “I bet you’ve been thinking you’ll get better right away with this one visit from the therapist.” At least Ennis leaned on him. They took several steps through the laundry room. “You’ve got to be patient. Do what she tells you. You’ll get there. You’ll blink and it’ll be a month from now, and you’ll be out with your horses. Watch the step here.” 

“I know,” Ennis said, his voice like a knife. 

They skittered down the step okay and made it to the couch. Jack’s heart sank; Ennis wasn’t any better then he’d been the day before. Matter of fact, he was worse, shakier on his feet and prickly. Maybe that was because he was tired out by whatever the therapist had put him through. That used to happen at the hospital, that he’d sleep after those sessions with Sandra. 

Jack wanted to ease Ennis down to the cushions, but Ennis pulled away from him with an off-balance jerk and ended up flopping down twisted on his side. The look on his face showed that it must have hurt. Fool man. Jack stepped back and put both hands on his hips, but he kept his words mild. “You know, the world won’t end if you take it easy and let me help you these first days. You keep doing stuff like that and you’ll fall on your ass.”

“So you say.” Ennis didn’t seem to be interested in looking at Jack directly. 

“Yeah, I do. Listen, I’ll make us some cheese sandwiches, okay with you?” 

“Yeah,” Ennis said, reaching for the remote. “Put relish on mine.” 

“Okay.”

“And don’t forget to put that dinner from Betty Jo back in the refrigerator.”

“All right. We’ll make that tomorrow, what do you say?”

“Least you won’t be late coming home tomorrow. Unless you’re thinking of going into work on a Saturday.” 

_Sheesh, Ennis, you think I like spending my days with shithead Corliss watching my every move?_

“No, I’ll stay home.” 

“Good,” Ennis said with a definite nod. 

Jack went back to the kitchen, shaking his head. He wondered if Ennis got how weird it was that now the shoe was on the other foot, with Ennis complaining about Jack working instead of the other way around.

Sandwiches alone weren’t going to cut it after the day Jack’d had. He rummaged around in the kitchen and put together potato chips, pickles, an orange that he pulled apart into sections and put in a bowl, a tin of sardines, and crackers. And of course beer for each of them. 

The game wasn’t on yet, so they ate with the evening news running in the background, not saying anything. Jack figured Ennis needed some time, and he did too. He wanted to look forward to the weekend, two whole days without going into work, to look just that far and no farther.

“So,” Ennis said, interrupting Jack’s silence and a report on the TV from the Middle East. He said it like that was saying a whole lot. Jack looked over at him and watched as he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his plaid shirt. “I never did like sardines, you know.”

Jack recognized a peace offering when he saw one. “Yeah, but I do.” 

“They taste like pussy.”

Jack sputtered and promptly spit out the cracker he’d just popped into his mouth. “Jesus! They do not!”

“Not that I remember too well, cause it’s been a long time, but ... yeah. Never did that with Cassie, and I never liked it with Alma.”

Jack frowned down at his knees. Lureen had wanted that from him a lot, and he’d given it to her no matter that, like Ennis, he never had liked it much either. He was sure glad that he wasn’t caught in that woman’s world anymore. Though every time he thought on Lureen his heart hurt. 

Ennis went on. “You won’t catch me eating those things.”

Jack abandoned contemplating his knees and raised his gaze to Ennis instead. He still looked worn out, maybe even a little pale, but his mouth was relaxed, not tight, and he was looking back at Jack without trying to hide. 

Jack sent a smile his way and was rewarded when he got an Ennis-specialty-smile in return -- so small as could be hardly seen, but real. They sat there for a couple seconds, four or five or even six, and Jack sucked it all in.

Deliberately, to get a rise out of him, Jack took another sardine and dropped it into his mouth. “Good that you don’t like them,” he said around chewing and swallowing it. “There’s more for me then.”

“Don’t know how you can eat those things. Hey, looks like they’re starting to talk about the game. Turn it up, would you?”

They listened to the announcers for a while. When a commercial came on right before the first pitch, Ennis rubbed the back of his neck, plenty casual, and kept staring at the TV screen.

“So how come you didn’t call today?”

Jack froze with the beer to his mouth. Ennis must have been waiting for the phone to ring. Damn Corliss so he couldn’t be free to contact his man who needed him. Damn the whole world that would never understand why he wanted to call Ennis in the first place. 

Jack swallowed the beer he’d been holding in his mouth. “Wasn’t sure you cared.”

Ennis did that thing he was doing now, half a shrug to not hurt his burned shoulder, though he was still fixed on a dumb commercial for Promise margarine. “Really don’t care. I had plenty of other things going on so I didn’t even notice you hadn’t called until now. Just wondering.”

“You liar.”

“Hey, not me.”

“I got roped into doing the lunch thing with the boss again, so I couldn’t get away to an outside phone. Sorry about that.”

“Thought you said that’s when you got those dinners, at lunchtime.”

Jack cringed inside and thought fast. “I did. Walking back to the truck, that’s when I saw the table set up, outside the Mini Mart.”

“Oh.” Ennis blinked. Maybe he was wondering how Jack would have explained that to Corliss, that he was buying three big casseroles of food, but he didn’t say anything about it. “So how was work today?”

“Fine and dandy. How was the therapist?”

“All right.”

“Well, that’s telling me a lot. Look, the game’s starting.” 

*****


	13. Not Perfect

Ennis took a long trip between sleeping and waking. He was trying to climb out of a well he’d fallen into, but there was a blacksmith’s anvil in a sling on his back, making it near impossible to get up to the surface. He was kept on the dividing line where life was so hard. 

He blinked. Then he blinked again. Even his eyelids felt heavy

It looked like he’d fallen asleep on the couch again, cause he was still there stretched out on his side. That pill Jack had made him swallow had eased some of his aches and pains, though it was the reason for the anvil-feeling too. Along about the seventh inning Jack had said, “That’s not an everyday frown on your face, that’s a hurting one. I’m getting your medicine.” He’d stood over Ennis, offering it with beer, and watched while Ennis swallowed both the painkiller and the booze. Ennis hadn’t even bitched about how the pill would make his eyes droop, though he’d managed to give Jack his company all the way through to the ninth inning. He recalled that the Tigers had won. 

The overhead bulb wasn’t on, but the TV with its flickering light showed a movie, another one of Jack’s late night specials. In low voices, so Ennis could hardly hear them, two U.S. Army Cavalry officers were trying to figure how they could go after some bandits who’d stolen their horses. He knew how they felt: without his horses, who would he be? 

He pondered that as he woke up more, cause it made sense for a while, but then he decided it fell into the category of those unanswerable questions that Floyd collected. Seemed he was getting a collection too. Like why hadn’t he told Jack the truth of the therapist who’d shown up that afternoon? There wasn’t a real reason, except .... No, there wasn’t a real reason.

_His heart jumped when he heard a car coming down the drive. Ennis got up from the kitchen table and went over to the side door, trying to lift his feet like any normal person but knowing he was a cat’s breath away from falling over._

_The day before, Betty Jo had turned the doorknob and walked in like she was a friend. This gal knocked three times -- tat, tat-tat -- the rhythm like a song, sort of. He reached for the doorknob, stopped, and then settled his hand on it. She was there to help him, and he had to let her in._

_But when he got the solid door open, it wasn’t the therapist at all. A man stood behind the screen instead._

_“Yeah?” he asked._

_“Mr. Del Mar? Hello, I’m Bill Springfield.”_

_“Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any.”_

_The man -- dark-haired like Jack, though with a different kind of face, more narrow, and with dark eyes -- smiled at him. “I’m not selling anything except getting you back on your feet. I’m your physical therapist. May I come in?”_

_Ennis didn’t know what to say. Weren’t all physical therapists women? He’d had two in the hospital. He looked past this Bill Springfield; maybe he was there with a woman who was the real deal? But there wasn’t anybody behind him._

_Springfield stood easily where he was, giving Ennis some time._

_Ennis was tempted to say No, he couldn’t come in. He didn’t know how he felt about this. Well, yes, he did. He didn’t like it. It’d taken everything he had back in the hospital, especially toward the end, to endure everybody touching him. But they’d all been women, except for Rutherford, and he was different, being a doctor. To have this good-looking man holding him up when he might fall, positioning him when they went through a new exercise, seeing how weak he was: no way._

_“Don’t they have....” He trailed off._

_It seemed like this Springfield guy knew what he was about to say. “I’m afraid I’m the only Colfax County therapist with room in my schedule for you.”_

_Sure, that’s cause nobody wanted him._

_Springfield went on. “If you want to wait for one of the two women in this area, you can certainly do that, but it will be a while. A few weeks at least. Mary Ellen is on maternity leave and Amanda’s booked solid. I’m afraid I’m your only option right now. And you really shouldn’t put this off.”_

_Yeah, no kidding. Reluctantly, Ennis pushed open the screen door._

_“Thanks,” Springfield said, like Ennis was doing him a favor._

_He walked past Ennis, put down a large case by the side of the table, and turned to watch Ennis shuffle across the kitchen to join him. Ennis’s face flamed. It was so much worse to have that man’s eyes on him than a woman’s. He glanced up at Springfield and then quickly away._

_He’d been expecting somebody like Sandra, with her plain talking, plain hospital way of dressing, plain everything if he didn’t count her gigantic boobs. She’d never worn make-up. Neither had the Salazar woman. Neither one had looked one bit like Alma or Cassie. This Bill person ...._

_“I see you’re not using a walker,” Springfield noted. “That’s good so long as you’re steady on your feet.”_

_That would surprise Jack, Ennis was sure, and to be truthful it surprised him. Steady wasn’t the word, and that had to be obvious to this man, if he knew what he was doing. But Ennis kept going until he got to his chair and managed to get himself down into it without making it look like a stone falling against a rock._

_Springfield hoisted the case up onto Jack’s chair, opened it, and started rummaging around inside. “I hope you’ve had a good day so far, because I’m about to spoil it with paperwork.” He flashed an understanding smile Ennis’s way. “It’s the worst thing I have to do, inflict the questions and the paperwork on my patients before we can get started with the real work. But the insurance companies have to get paid, so....”_

_He spread three forms out on the table top and went back to searching for more. The man looked to be maybe a little older than Ennis, with a hint of gray to his sideburns, though he was clean-shaven. Seemed he did the exercises as much as his patients did, or maybe he was one of those runners who liked to take on marathon distances, or could be he hiked in the mountains. He just had that look of a more-than-usual healthy person, with a waist like a woman’s but shoulders like a man’s. Huh. His short-sleeved white shirt showed off his tan, though Ennis was sure it wasn’t a working man’s tan._

_With a start, he realized he was staring, though he didn’t think he’d been noticed. Besides, how Springfield looked didn’t matter. What mattered was that a therapist was here at last. Every day counted in Ennis’s book._

_Springfield pulled out one last paper, moved the case, and sat down across from him._

_“So, how are you feeling today, Mr. Del Mar?”_

_“All right,” Ennis mumbled. “I’m ready to get walking again, though.” Before this guy had shown up, he’d considered asking the therapist -- asking her -- if he would ever be able to ride his horses again, train them, or care for them out in the stable and the pasture. He didn’t want to get his hopes up if that wasn’t going to happen, but now he wasn’t sure he could ask, not with a man listening. He would never ask anybody anything about his dick problem._

_“That’s the whole reason I’m here, to get you back functioning at as high a level as possible. We’ll spend about twenty minutes getting all the required information, and then we’ll take the rest of the hour for me to evaluate your capabilities and set up a course of treatment. Let’s start with your social security number.”_

_Ennis gave him that, figured out what the date had been when him and Jack had taken on the fire from the Almighty, told what his job at Buckminster’s needed him to do, and answered a lot of other questions. He didn’t like opening up his life like this, but it had to be done. They got in a rhythm, this therapist and him, question-answer, question-answer. Ennis felt good that he was able to give details about the exercises at St. Vincent’s, something Springfield hadn’t expected from him, he could see. He remembered each one like a stormy day, since every single one had seemed impossible to do at the start. It was good, too, that Springfield wasn’t wasting any time. But eventually Ennis had to confess he didn’t know the name of the pharmacy he used._

_“That’s all right,” Springfield said in that easy way he had, sort of like he was a good guy you liked talking to instead of somebody invading Ennis’s house. “Sullivan’s is the one most people in Eagle Nest use, so is it all right if I put that down? It’s over in Angel Fire, the closest pharmacy around.”_

_“Sure, that’s fine.”_

_“The hospital sent you home with some medications, didn’t they?”_

_Ennis scratched over one ear and then quickly brought his hand down. “Yep. I don’t like taking them, though.”_

_“Well, the pain medication is probably making you sleepy. Only take that when you need it, but there’s no sense enduring real pain if you can temporarily alleviate it. I need the names of your medications for the insurance company. But I won’t ask you what they are; nobody ever remembers the formal names unless they’re pharmacists.”_

_The man had that right. “Can’t say I know them.”_

_“We’ll get your bottles and read off them. Do you keep them in your bathroom?” Springfield stood up and looked around, seeming to be honestly perplexed as to where the bathroom might be, though he did glance toward the closed door that was the real deal._

_“No,” Ennis said. “They’re ... ” His tongue froze on the rest of it. The two pill bottles were on the dresser in the bedroom._

_“In your bedroom? That’s the second place most patients keep their medication. If you don’t mind, I’ll go get them so I have the information to complete your records. This way?” He took a few steps in the right direction and then paused._

_Ennis sure as hell did mind. “No, I’ll go.” He heaved himself to his feet._

_“That’s fine. Would you like some assistance in getting there? Or can you do it on your own?”_

_“I can do it,” Ennis growled. He pushed off from the table to get himself going and made his slow, uneven way into the front room, past the desk, past where the walker was gonna live in the corner with the spiders, and all the way to the bedroom doorway, where he stopped to lean against the doorjamb for a couple seconds. Maybe he should have rested before the therapist showed up, instead of tottering all over the house, doing stuff that didn’t need doing._

_He pushed off against the wood -- seemed he needed a little something extra to get him going -- and got in front of the dresser he shared with Jack. He swiped at the two bottles sitting in plain sight there, worked to get his balance again, and turned to head back._

_It all would have gone okay, cause he was almost back to the kitchen, if he hadn’t looked up to see Springfield standing by Jack’s chair, checking how he was doing. His foot sort of caught on something invisible, and the next second he was headed for a fall, just like that morning with the pancakes._

_Springfield caught him before that happened. Hands that weren’t Jack’s caught him under his armpits, and a firm hip propped him up from the side. He tried to jerk away, couldn’t, the medicines went flying, and that unbalanced him more. Springfield’s grip on him tightened._

_“Whoa there, Mister Del Mar! Just stand still for a minute.”_

_Embarrassment flooded through him, and he wondered if he was flushed red from it again. He stood still, like he’d been told, since it wasn’t like he had much choice. He realized he was holding on to the man’s biceps, and he flexed his fingers as if to let go, but there wasn’t any other place to put them. Felt strange to be touching a man-not-Jack this way, but he was a therapist, Ennis reminded himself. He closed his eyes; therapist or not, he didn’t want to look into Springfield’s face, too close._

_“I see we have a job to do strengthening your legs, but we’ll get there. There, you’ve got your sea legs back already. Ready for me to let go?”_

_Ennis’s eyes popped open. He wasn’t going to drag Ennis back to his seat, like Jack probably would have? He appreciated that. “Sure,” he said._

_He got back to the table on his own without any problem, and he got down into the chair even better than he’d done the first time. That was good. He looked across at where Springfield had seated himself again after picking up the bottles and saw that the man had noticed it. He nodded at Ennis as he wrote down the medicine names, and there didn’t seem to be any judgment in his face._

_Maybe this would work out. He wasn’t happy about it, and he felt like twelve kinds of fool to have almost hit the floor just now, but Springfield wasn’t making any big fuss. Seemed he was a man Ennis could work with._

_“Uh, I suppose you’re gonna say I should’ve taken that thing.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the walker’s direction._

_Springfield tilted his head and damn if a sparkle didn’t show up in his eyes. “Ideally, yes. But if I did suggest you use the walker, would that actually encourage you to use it?” He paused for a few seconds. “I didn’t think so. All right, let’s finish this so we can get started on your therapy.”_

_“Yeah. Want to spend as much time as I can on that.”_

_“You’re highly motivated, I can see.”_

_“I’ve got a life to get back to living,” Ennis said, sort of rough, but he was trying not to sound like he cared so much he might get choked up. “If I can. Don’t know if I can.”_

_Springfield put his pen down. He looked directly at Ennis, seriously, with no hint of the easy-going ways he’d been showing. “I’d be surprised if you couldn’t, Mr. Del Mar. I already have a pretty good evaluation of your capabilities from what I just saw.”_

_“I don’t know,” Ennis said. He wanted to chew on his thumbnail but didn’t let himself do that. “The leg’s not so good. Won’t do much.”_

_“It will by the time we’re finished the therapy. The trick is to keep up with the exercises on the days I don’t come to the house and to have the right attitude. Let me guess: one of the words your friends would use to describe you is stubborn. In this case, that would be the right attitude.”_

_Damned if Ennis could help himself, he let loose with a small smile as he looked down at his fingers. It felt strange to have that on his face, caused by this man-not-Jack. He knew he didn’t smile so much. Jack made him smile. So did his girls, mostly, cause he felt good enough in their company to let a good feeling bubble out of him now and then. Huh._

_He smoothed his face out and said, “Guess that’s so,” since it was true he’d been accused a time or two of being a stubborn jackass. Though he didn’t know if he really had any friends. Except for Floyd, he supposed. And Betty Jo. And Rocky, who he’d heard had done a lot for him when he’d been out of it. Matt, who was coming for the horses, did he count?_

_“So you think maybe I’ll be able to care for my horses again?” Somehow that question came out after all._

_“I think there’s a good chance of it, yes,” Springfield said, “if you’re diligent and we don’t run into complications. We’ll know more in a week or two.”_

_Ennis wasn’t sure he should believe that good chance or not. He wanted to, but he could hardly get around now, and he was weak like a child. Complications. A whole week or two? He traced a circle on the table with his forefinger._

_“Do you mean you care for horses of your own, besides the ones you told me you work with at the ranch?” Springfield asked._

_“Yeah.” He thought maybe he should say something more. “I take in horses to train, when I’m not working on the Buckminster spread. I’ve got five horses out back.”_

_“That sounds like a thriving business.”_

_It hadn’t felt like it was thriving. It’d felt like good work that he wanted to do, though, and now he couldn’t. “Before this happened to me, I was riding them every night after coming from the ranch.”_

_“I own horses too.”_

_That brought Ennis’s head up. That accounted for Springfield’s fitness, he supposed, and that healthy, tanned look to his skin. Weren’t many men with that look. “You’re a horseman?”_

_Springfield gave a little laugh. “I wish I was, but I don’t have the time. It’s a hobby, and I know there’s a big difference between pleasure riding and really knowing what I’m doing. You’re the one who knows what he’s doing, not me.”_

_Ennis shrugged, hardly knowing how to take that compliment. “How many do you have?” he asked, to cover his confusion._

_“Just two. A nine-year-old chestnut gelding I just bought, and a little bay mare, the prettiest horse you’ve ever seen. The gelding is a handful some days.”_

_“You giving him enough work?”_

_“As much as I can. Like I said, it’s just pleasure riding.”_

_“Maybe you could try different bits on him. Sometimes you need to search around to find what suits them best that way.”_

_“Good idea, I’ll try that.” Springfield picked up his pen again. “Well, time waits for no man. Back to these questions.”_

_The insurance company wanted to know everything but what kind of toothpaste Ennis used, but after another five minutes, finally they were on the last page and the last line. With his pen hovering over the paper, Springfield asked, “Who should be notified in case of emergency?”_

_Ennis swallowed against the sudden pressure in his chest. Here he’d been going on like things were normal, just him talking to Springfield, figuring he could help, and now they’d come up against the big brick wall. “Uh ... I don’t ... I suppose ....”_

_He ground to a halt. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of Jack. Or of himself. Sort of. He didn’t want to be. It was just ...._

_Ennis looked away toward the window over the sink. Half the state probably knew about him and Jack since he’d got hit by lightning. It was probably on those forms in Springfield’s case, reports from the hospital that he must have read._

_“Mister Del Mar?”_

_It wasn’t like Springfield wouldn’t give him the right care when he heard Ennis say Jack’s name out loud. Was he that kind of man?_

_Maybe he was like that old hag nurse who’d warned him and Jack not to talk to Martinez, the man he’d shared a room with at the hospital. It had turned out that Martinez was a talkative, likable guy who never once said anything about how Ennis liked Jack better than any woman. Martinez had been okay, even though a few of his relatives had given Ennis the cold shoulder._

_Or it could be Springfield was one of those Jesus-Loves-Me-and-Not-You folks. Plenty of those around, and he never could tell one by just looking._

_He judged, though, that Springfield wasn’t any of those kind of men, sort of like how Springfield had somehow decided that Ennis was stubborn, each of them taking the measure of the other. Ennis tried to open his mouth, to find a way to say what he had to say, but Springfield talked first._

_“Would it be appropriate for me to use the same contact information that we have here from the hospital records?” he asked, so gently that no person on Earth could think there was judgment in the words._

_“His name’s Jack Twist,” Ennis blurted out. “I don’t know what the hospital had, but put Jack’s name down.”_

_“All right.” Springfield didn’t seem put out to hear it. He wrote Jack’s name, and Ennis watched as it took shape upside-down. It was a good thing, seeing that._

_“Is there a telephone number to reach him? During the day, I mean. I’m guessing he’s at work now?”_

_It took a second or two for Ennis to get his tongue unstuck again. “He works over at the feedlot in Cimarron. His number there is 555-4673.”_

_“I know somebody who works there,” Springfield said as he wrote that down too._

_A couple seconds passed before Ennis decided to say something in turn. “You do?”_

_“Uh-huh. Her name’s Marge, in the office. She’s my cousin. Does Jack work with the cattle?”_

_It was asked so normally. Once he’d managed to say it, Ennis had expected never to hear Jack’s name again, like they’d gone up to the uneven part of the land, got through it, and wouldn’t ever go back. But the way Springfield was asking, so calm, looking like a regular person having a conversation, maybe Jack-and-Ennis wasn’t uneven ground to him._

_“He’s in sales,” Ennis said, sort of cautiously._

_Springfield’s brow furrowed. “Sales? How does that work?”_

_“Convincing the cattlemen to turn over their stock.”_

_“Oh, I see. I imagine Jack and Marge know one another, though Marge isn’t too happy there. Does Jack like it?”_

_The man was looking at him like he really was interested in an answer. “Used to like it real well,” Ennis said. “Now, I’m not so sure.”_

_Springfield nodded. “That’s what Marge says. She says the boss hates her.”_

_“He, uh, Jack says the boss is hard on him too.” It was a little like talking to Floyd._

_“Some bosses are like that.”_

_“Yep, there’s no accounting for them.”_

_“That’s one reason I’m in my field. There’s a lot of independence in what I do.” Springfield looked down at the form with Jack’s name as answer to one of the questions, and he signed it. “Now,” he said, “finally it’s time for the fun part.”_

_Ennis didn’t imagine it would be fun. Now came the time when not only was his house not his house, but his body wasn’t even his body anymore. Hands on him. Bad enough when he’d thought it would be a woman knocking on his door. Bad enough when it’d been a strange, outdoor-looking man instead. It was worse, though, now that he knew the man, Bill Springfield, who owned horses like Ennis did and talked to him about Jack. A queasy feeling rolled in his stomach at the thought of doing the therapist-thing with him._

_He hauled himself upright, knowing he couldn’t get away. “Let’s stop wasting time and get to it then.”_

_The easy-going man who Ennis had thought was okay was dead serious about his job. He barked out orders, trying to get Ennis to do things he knew full well he couldn’t do. Except, he supposed some of them he managed. Just ten minutes in, sweat popped out across his shoulders. After a while, Springfield gave him a dish towel that had been hanging from the refrigerator handle, and he mopped his face with it._

_Who would think that sitting down and then standing up from an ordinary chair ten times in a row could be so hard? Damned hard. The sixth try he fell back to the seat, and it took all his strength to go for the next one. Springfield boosted him up into it, steadying him, got him standing, and said, “That’s enough for now. We’ll stop at seven.” He wrote something in his notebook._

_Damn it, that wasn’t enough for now! Ennis needed more, he needed ten hours of therapy to get him walking fine by next week, but that was just a joke. He couldn’t do ten hours when he couldn’t do ten standing-up-from-a-chair._

_Weaker than weak, that’s what he was. Lower than low._

_He hoped Springfield liked to see him struggling over such simple things as lifting his leg the smallest bit to the side and holding it, damn near impossible as the trembles came over him way sooner than the seconds Springfield was counting to. He’d like to see the therapist give all this stuff a try after being laid up so long. Each “Very good, Mister Del Mar” was lost in a whole lot of “We’ll need to work on that one.”_

Afterward, it wasn’t like he’d been able to fight against the tiredness that had caused Jack to find him sleeping at the table. Ennis had barely made it back from the door to the table after Springfield said his good-byes. Even though he’d intended to write to Junior, he’d been out like a light. He was surprised that he’d woke up now at all, on the couch in the back room, instead of sleeping straight through the night where he was. That anvil on his back was still there, weighing him down, making it hard to move anything.

The cavalry sergeant on the TV said, “I’ll get the truth out of him.”

The truth. He hadn’t told Jack the truth of Springfield being a Bill and not a Barbara. It’d been a quick, as-it-happened decision, cause it just didn’t feel right to admit.... Admit what? That he’d been a good guy and Ennis had liked him? Not liked him in the wrong way, not because of his shoulders and waist and fine hands, not that way at all, but Springfield had been okay. Easy to talk to. At least until he’d turned all U.S. Marine on him, barking out orders and standing way too close, always right at Ennis’s shoulder. Wished he could have shrugged the man off. But even that he could understand, a therapist with a job, trying to get Ennis’s sorry self back to the way he’d been.

So why’d he keep his mouth shut with Jack? It beat him. He just hadn’t been able to imagine telling Jack, that was all. No law against a man keeping a thing or two to himself, was there? Shit. 

Ennis rubbed his cheek against the cushion, wishing that pain pill worked better. Wished it worked on his feelings as well as his body, cause it was hard to see anything good right now. He’d woke up with everything pressing on him. Back in the hospital, all he’d wanted was to go home, thinking he’d be so much better here. But he wasn’t. There was no magic working in Eagle Nest, and there was so much he couldn’t do. Things had to get better. They had to. He couldn’t live like this, only partway back to being a whole man. 

Ennis turned his head a bit, looking to see if Jack was around. Not that he would say anything about how the dark had taken him over inside, but Jack and his way of looking at the world -- his smile -- would ease Ennis’s mind. 

Jack was right there in the room with him and must’ve been the whole time. He sat not in his new recliner but in Ennis’s old chair, closest to where Ennis was spread out. He wasn’t watching the TV. His head was flung back so he couldn’t see anything but the ceiling, if a man could see through eyes scrunched-shut. His pants were open and shoved down, and his dick was in his hand. His moving hand.

For what felt like a long, stretched out time, Ennis fell back into that well again, back into the muck at the bottom. Jack was jerking off again, and there wasn’t any chance that Ennis could join him. 

He watched Jack go at it: the line of his stretched neck, the strong arm in motion, that naked dick appearing and disappearing within Jack’s curled fist, the helmet of his dick fat and purple. Ennis knew in his head how he should be reacting to seeing all that, how his breath should be tightening, how there should be a curl of warmth in his belly, how every other time in his whole life since he’d been old enough he’d got a tingle at the base of his dick that lifted it and got it hard, at such a wondrous sight as Jack Twist pleasuring himself.

But there was nothing. Not in this useless body of his, not able to stand right, walk right, have sex right and for sure not love Jack the way he needed to be loved with a man’s body.

Oh. Oh. Ennis’s breath caught so fierce in his throat, like the clinging ooze he was mired in had got stuck there. He wanted to grab Jack to him, so bad. His arms ached with his wanting. It’d been so long since they’d done it free and easy, when he hadn’t even thought of how good it was to touch that man chest to chest, dick to dick; he’d just taken it for granted.

How long could this go on until he could take it for granted again, make him and Jack together a normal part of the day? This couldn’t be normal, him being so worthless to himself and to his man. Wouldn’t somebody have talked to him about it, told him, Oh, yeah, didn’t you know, when a horse falls on a man and lightning hits him from on high, that takes away what’s most precious to him, and it robs him of the chance to give the man most precious to him what he really needs.

Like hell. It couldn’t be. He maybe couldn’t make love -- right now, he couldn’t make love right now, didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to do it tomorrow or the next day, soon as he got himself back to himself -- but he could do more than lay there like a log watching what was going on over there on that chair. Jack always had liked Ennis’s hands on him. Dark-night whispers of _Yeah, touch me there, Ennis, nothing better than this._

“Yeah, that’s right,” Jack said low, like he was agreeing with Ennis. Jack held off jerking his dick to slide down to his balls. He humped up a little in the chair to give himself the best angle to gather them in. “Oh, yeah. God. So close.”

Jack Twist was a hot temptation not five feet away, his cheeks flushed and the tip of his tongue sticking through his lips. Ennis wasn’t any saint, and he was useless mainly, but he could do some things for Jack, couldn’t he? Maybe Jack wouldn’t even notice he couldn’t ... wasn’t .... And maybe something would happen so he’d be okay and ....

“Hey.” That came out in a whisper, the same way Jack was whispering, so Ennis licked his lips and tried again out loud. “Hey. Jack.”

Jack jerked like he’d been shot and sat up straight, looking like a kid who’d been caught doing ... well, doing what he’d been doing. “Uh ... .” His eyes were wide and dark and guilty as sin. His dick, though, didn’t look guilty at all.

Ennis put out his arm, and it startled him how tough it was to get that thing to move. Felt like it had a big plaster cast on it. “Come on over here.” 

Jack slid off the chair and took one step forward, though he didn’t move so easy with his pants down around his knees. “You sure?” He shuffled closer. “Maybe we should wait.” 

“You don’t need to wait. Come here.” 

Jack took another step, so that Ennis’s hand could close around what was jutting out red and certain. He hissed as fingers wrapped around him. “Shit, that feels good.” 

Jack had no idea how this felt, such an every-which-way mixture of good and horrible. This was the only way he could take Jack’s hardness to be his again, but it wasn’t matched by Ennis’s own, and he was so weak he could hardly keep his arm out. Still, so fine to have this heat in his hand. After his day with the therapist -- another mix of pretty fine and black-hearted discouraging -- he needed this. Needed Jack at least like this, this tiny bit of holding, owning. 

Ennis gave the dick in his grasp a tug. “I got rights to this, Twist,” he said, though it was hard to get the words out, his tongue dry and clumsy. “Maybe you’ve forgot that while I been gone. Come here and let me give you a hand.”

Instead Jack took half a step back, stretching Ennis’s hold on him. He looked down at Ennis as sincere as could be. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to. But you’re just home two days, and I think we shouldn’t ... .”

No. Jack wanted it and Ennis was gonna give it to him, whatever way he could, and that was that. Ennis rubbed his thumb where it would do the most good, knowing that he wouldn’t need to do anything more. 

“God!” Jack said fast and low, and then he moaned when Ennis did it again. A spurt of wetness proved that Jack wasn’t gonna fight him on this. “You fight dirty, you know that? Let go a second.” He kicked off his shoes. “Can you move over some?”

The couch was wide, and they’d done this here before, but it proved next to impossible for Ennis to heave himself back -- pulling each foot up out of the mud, the sucking noise of it, telling himself it wasn’t so bad, there was sky up over the well, and he’d make it back up there someday, unless he was done for, forever, and that might be the case but he tried not to think on it -- and make room for Jack. He managed it while Jack shoved his pants down to the floor and stepped out of them, leaving him in all his glory from the waist down. Ennis let that sight fill his eyes and it wasn’t tough to do, either. Damn, but he had a fine-looking man. Fine in so many ways. And here he came, closer, just a few seconds away from them touching how Ennis needed real bad. 

He reached for Jack, settled his fingers on his hips, and Jack eased down to the couch on his side, face to face in kissing range, right up against Ennis. And only then did Ennis realize he still had all his clothes on. 

As they came together, Jack must have realized the same thing. “Damn, I’ve been dreaming of getting you naked,” Jack gasped, and then he kissed Ennis, his lips coming down hard and fast with a swipe of tongue before he tore away. “We’ve got to do that soon.” 

Not skin to skin now, the more fool him. But knowing how much effort it’d taken just to move back and give Jack room on the cushions -- had to hope Jack hadn’t seen that -- he knew he would’ve been as slow as a turtle trying to get out of his clothes. It didn’t matter, though. This time was for Jack, not him. 

Jack’s restless hand trailed with purpose down Ennis’s backbone and settled on his jeans-covered ass. Ennis wanted it to feel good, he strained to have it feel good, and maybe somewhere it did. In his head it did, the knowing that Jack’s hand was there, squeezing and then releasing him.

“Oh, fuck,” Jack moaned with a roll of his head. “Ennis, come on, I’m dying here.”

Ennis eased back so he could hold again what was most important. He could imagine how Jack felt, being close and then getting interrupted, and he wasn’t going to fool around. The dick was slick with KY already, so Jack must’ve ... it didn’t matter. He played along it, feeling again the pulsing of that vein Jack had, and the roughness of his short and curlies that teased the side of Ennis’s hand, and then the smooth, slippery length that ended with the knob swelling against his circling fingers. So damn familiar. 

Jack’s eyes stared into his, close. Ennis could see how big his pupils were. “Fuck,” Jack panted, and his hips jerked, shoving his dick more surely into Ennis’s grasp. “I’ve been needing this, Ennis, you don’t have any idea.” 

Ennis’s heart seemed to squeeze down into a point in his chest. “Me too,” Ennis breathed against Jack’s face, cause it wasn’t a real lie. He just hadn’t wanted it this way. It would be good to kiss Jack again, but instead he changed his grip and started to pump in the way he knew would get Jack off fast. 

Jack’s eyes closed like a curtain dropping. Now he was gripping both of Ennis’s shoulders. “Oh, crap,” he moaned. “I couldn’t help myself, you laying there, and it’s been so long for us, and ... and keep on doing that.” 

Ennis kept up his rhythm, pull, push, staring at Jack as his mouth thinned and stretched and got tight. Then as his mouth opened a bit. And then as it opened more. 

“Come on, baby, give it up for me,” Ennis said, demanding. He stroked faster, tightening his grip to feel Jack more and give him the best. He hitched closer, so close, close enough to press them together skin to skin if only he was bare, or to kiss, or to lay his face against Jack’s neck, except now wasn’t the time for any of that. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ennis chanted, tensing up, feeling the pressure on his arm grow, his muscles hard like armor. Why wasn’t this happening? He knew Jack was hanging right on the edge.

_Come on, Jack, do it. Do it._

“Can’t hold it back!” Jack announced in his old way. 

As come splashed over his fingers, a mournful question was let loose in Ennis too. He knew the sex-feeling that was rolling over Jack, and he was glad to give it to him -- better than gold, a good that came from the heart, and damned important, he knew -- but he wanted that sex-feeling for himself too. Why didn’t he have it? Why? 

Sighing, he rubbed the wetness off on Jack’s shirt and tucked his forehead into the curve of his neck. He sniffed, taking in the way Jack smelled. He always had liked these after-sex tell-tale signs, rough and taking-no-prisoners man-smells curling up his nose. He listened to Jack panting, trying to get his breath back, and felt the rise and fall of his chest against Ennis’s nose and chin. The rise and fall, rise and fall, like the slow and easy beating of a big bird’s wings opening and closing ... 

“Wow,” Jack said, low and heartfelt after a minute or two, though it might’ve been more, cause Ennis was startled when he heard Jack’s voice, and his eyes popped open. He’d come close to sleeping again, hadn’t he? His eyes were so heavy.

Barely moving, Jack nuzzled his nose in Ennis’s hair. “That was perfect,” he whispered.

Not so perfect for Ennis. How had they just done that? Or at least, how had he done that? His leg was on fire, and there wasn’t a spot anywhere else that didn’t tell him he’d done his whole body wrong. 

He pulled back some so he could see Jack better, the self-satisfied look on his face. “You okay? Your ribs?”

Jack stretched slowly, like a cat in a shaft of sunlight, being careful of his side but still the picture of just-come contentment. “I don’t care about my ribs right now. How about you? All right?”

“Sure.” Jack didn’t need to know about his every little ache and pain.

“Great.” Jack smiled one of his wicked grins that Ennis would’ve paid to see every day.  
He reached to Ennis’s shirt, unbuttoned the top button, and started a fingertip dance down the front, headed straight south. “Then how about we -- ”

Ennis grabbed his wrist. It wasn’t that easy to say, “Don’t think so, bud.” 

Jack frowned enough so there were lines between his eyes. “No?” he said, sounding real disappointed. 

He grunted and looked away. The times they’d been together when one of them had got off and not the other were few and far between. Jack knew that and would notice this time as being different, but there wasn’t anything Ennis could think of to send his thoughts elsewhere. “Think we better hit the sack. It’s late.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. If that’s what you say.” 

Jack gathered his clothes and then offered him a helping hand. Ennis didn’t say no. He felt about how the pinto must have when Ennis had first rescued him, wobbly and weak. 

He forced himself not to lean on Jack much, shooed him away while he used the bathroom, and did his best to hide how he was hurting. He looked at the mattress like it was an enemy, but he couldn’t fight against what took him down flat on it. He was so sick of it, always in bed, always tired. 

The light clicked out. Jack settled next to him and asked, “You feeling okay, really? Maybe you should take another pain pill.”

He’d be sleeping for a week if he took two so close. “Nope.”

“Pain can get you in the middle of the night. If you need one later, wake me up, all right?” came Jack’s voice from the shadows next to him. 

It wasn’t likely, but Jack wouldn’t let him be unless he answered. “All right.”

It wasn’t long before he could tell that Jack had slipped into sleep. It was no wonder, him getting Ennis’s best handjob. But Ennis was stuck in the darkness, without anything to work against his burning thigh. 

He lay there, gritting his teeth now and then when he thought maybe he should get that pill after all. But waking Jack up and asking ... that would be like he was back in the hospital, helpless, and not the man he wanted to be. 

The man he wanted to be. It took a lot of courage that Ennis didn’t think he had much of to reach down and touch himself through the thin cotton of his shorts. His dick was like Betty Jo’s overcooked spaghetti. Jack had brought home a cripple from the hospital in more ways than he knew. 

Ennis rubbed his stinging eyes with one hand and pulled on his dick with the other. If Jack could do it on his own, right here in this bed with both of them in it, then he could do it too. He tried to think of things that might make him hard and give his dick a boost, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts on tight butts, and not on Jack going down on him or Jack’s raised ass and the slide inside, or even the first sight of Jack waiting for him at the trailhead.

Ennis pulled and pulled on his dick, and instead it seemed every other thought but the ones he wanted galloped through his brain. The pinched face of that one nurse and the hospital smell. How he’d hated that. Betty Jo and her hurt look over the venison. He was so dumb. Bill Springfield grabbing hold of him when he’d almost fallen ....

Damn it, no. He didn’t want to think of the therapist, not the strength of his hands or the warmth of his smile or how he hadn’t judged Ennis and Jack together. Though he did look like Jack, some. About the same size. Same shape. The same overall look as Jack, and Ennis always had liked a man who ....

Jack. The way Jack looked when he came, and the feeling Ennis always got, knowing he’d given his man that. He gulped down the sudden rush of saliva into his mouth. God, he wanted that again. He wanted that man, his Jack, and Ennis wanted to be his man every way there was. For that to happen, he had to get himself working again.

Ennis clenched his teeth and went at it as strong as when he’d been trying to make Jack come. No teasing here, he pushed his foreskin back and forth over his softness, testing his dick, fishing for hardness, directly to what mattered most. 

_Do it. Do it ...._ Dicks and asses and ... and... and ....

Nothing... nothing .... nothing .... Damn it! Motherfucking damn dick! 

He squeezed himself hard enough to hurt and then backed off quick. _Come on! Come on!_ he chanted to himself.

He pulled some more, but he was a done deal this night, just his thigh throbbing and his dick not-throbbing. With a sound that should have woke Jack up and didn’t -- a growl against the whole world -- Ennis gave up and shoved his dick back inside his shorts. 

He’d told Jack that night that he had rights. How would Jack react when he found out Ennis was as good as dead below the belt? He wasn’t dumb, his man. He’d find out soon.

All the darkness in the sky rolled over Ennis. He’d have to leave. If worst came to worst, he’d have to say _Good-bye. Sorry, this isn’t what you signed up for and I know it. You deserve more than what I can give, so I’m just gonna go and...._

He heaved in air as panic set in, making him want to lean over the side of the bed and puke up his guts. He could imagine Jack’s face, now when suddenly his imagination was back working again. He could see the world-ending hurt there because he could feel it in his own self, so sick to his stomach, if he had to leave. Leave. Goddamnit, leave? Would he have to, if Jack didn’t want Ennis in his bed if.... What would Jack say? 

If he kept carrying on like this -- like he was some frightened kid, breathing so hard and kicking at the sheet -- he’d wake Jack up for sure, and he didn’t need any questions about anything right now. Ennis tried to calm himself; he hadn’t just now come home only to walk out down the lonely road himself. That wasn’t gonna happen. Wouldn’t happen.

He had .... He had ... the therapy, right? Three times a week with nice-guy-Bill, who seemed like he knew what he was doing. Grimly, Ennis contemplated the shadows on the ceiling. Springfield damn well better know what he was doing, cause, could be, there was a connection between Ennis’s dick and the walking. It made sense, the overall body getting better, right? 

Ennis could be stubborn, like Springfield had said was needed. And he could remember to do those exercises that had been left for him this weekend. Maybe some time when Jack wasn’t looking. He could pretend to need sleep and go into their room, close the door ... and then likely he’d really need to sleep, after that.

With a sigh, Ennis rubbed at his thigh, trying to ignore his goddamned, limp, no-good dick. The night rolled over him and minutes passed. He wasn’t dead, and that was something. He imagined Jack was grateful for that. 

He blinked against the darkness. He was glad he wasn’t dead too, so he could spend the weekend with Jack. There’d be no more of these long days alone, corralling him with his thoughts, like how low he’d got cause he hadn’t got a call from Jack at noontime. What kind of man was he becoming, that he’d wanted to hear Jack’s voice in the middle of the day?

The kind who ... who ... the kind who’d missed Jack something fierce once Jack had left St. Vincent’s to head for the feedlot. Most aggravating son-of-a-bitch he’d ever met, that man and his ideas, but ... his man. They had that now, didn’t they? Even one of the nurses at the hospital had seen it. 

The thin, dark-haired one had gotten to talking to him toward the end, now and then. She’d remarked on Jack coming and staying all those days when Ennis hadn’t even been awake. 

“I don’t know much about your type of relationship,” she’d said as she pumped up the blood pressure cuff around his arm, “but I’m not blind. I know real devotion when I see it.” 

Ennis turned his head and checked out the dark shape of the man snoring next to him. Everything swirling around in his brain might be a mess, and he might be a mess too, but ... Devotion. That was a good word. 

*****  



	14. What a Man Doesn't Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be posting next week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. The next post will be on Wednesday, December 4, 2013.
> 
> Welcome, welcome to the incomparable Beth, who is back on the job editing Force of Nature with this chapter! I am so grateful to her for her friendship and her skills too. She'll be joining Elke for editing duties through the end of this novel and hopefully on through the conclusion of the trilogy. Thanks to both of these wonderful women!

Any puff of wind could have knocked Ennis over when, on Monday, Springfield put his case up on Jack’s chair again and pulled out some navy blue gym shorts. 

“You’ll need to wear these for our sessions,” he said. “I took the liberty of bringing them. They’re brand new.”

Ennis wasn’t blind, he could see the attached tag. Though Springfield was holding the shorts out toward him, Ennis didn’t take them. He sat himself down at the table instead. “I don’t wear shorts.”

“I thought that might be the case, which is why I brought these for you,” Springfield said easily. “I’ve treated ranch hands before, and they do seem to have certain ideas about what to wear.” He smiled at that, as if he remembered some of them with fond feelings. 

“Makes sense,” Ennis said, biting on his lip and then releasing it, looking at those shorts all the while. “Got to have protection for your legs, riding a horse for any time at all. Out on the range too. Can’t do any of that wearing ... not wearing good pants.” He didn’t like saying that out loud, like he’d said something just this side of dirty.

“I know. I wouldn’t wear shorts when I’m riding either.” 

Ennis squinted up at him. Maybe they could get to talking about horses and forget about him changing. “Your two horses, where do you keep them? You have your own spread?”

Springfield sat down and shoved the shorts across the tabletop. “We board Cinnamon and Spice at a stable not far outside Taos. My wife and I ride a few times a month.”

Huh. Ennis looked at Springfield’s left hand and didn’t see a ring. Over the weekend, he’d wondered -- when he hadn’t been snoozing like he was still back in the hospital, not keeping Jack company hardly at all -- whether the therapist was married. Not everybody wore a ring, though. He’d been so fucking destroyed to pull Alma’s ring off his hand. So fucking glad to do it at the same time.

With his ringless fingers, Springfield tapped on the table just south of the shorts. “I tried your idea over the weekend. About the bit.”

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

“I think Cinnamon was confused by it.”

“That’s half the battle. You got his attention. He behave better?”

“Yes. Yes, he did. Not perfect, though.”

“You’ve got to give them time, get used to the idea. Keep working with him.”

“I will. Tell me, what kind of training is it you do?”

It wasn’t like he had some big, Yellow-Pages business. Didn’t even have a business-card business yet, though Jack sure had been on him about that. 

If the therapy didn’t work, he wouldn’t have any business at all. He looked at those shorts, and then he looked over Springfield’s shoulder to the kitchen clock, ticking away the seconds. He had a feeling nice-guy-Bill and him were in an old, wild-west standoff. 

“I buy broke down horses that nobody else wants, but I can see they’ve got plenty of good left in them.”

“Oh. I thought you said you had clients.”

“Yeah, them too. If a horse doesn’t behave for somebody, I can train them to -- ” Had he done okay with Fancy? She sure had been bad-natured. But he’d returned her to Mark O’Hara a better horse than she’d been before, rideable, more biddable. And Trouble wasn’t really any trouble anymore. “I get them to do better. Pay attention to their owners.”

Springfield looked thoughtful. “So you work with the horses here?” 

Ennis could see the interest in Springfield’s eyes. He figured Jack would have him signing on the dotted line already, if only Ennis could work again. He could hardly let himself imagine that time. Might happen ....

“That’s right. And then I send them home when they’re ready to go. This ain’t ... this isn’t their home for long, if things work out.” Hadn’t worked out for Janice and her horse yet, one thing after another delaying things. And he wasn’t gonna mention how Janice had asked for riding lessons, one more person who wanted to waltz in on what him and Jack had here.

“I saw your horses grazing when I drove up today. They all looked in fine condition.”

“There’s another one, a pinto. Uh ... Jack went down this morning and put him in the paddock behind the stable.” He looked to see if mentioning Jack caused any reaction, but no, Springfield was like he always was. 

Ennis hadn’t asked Jack to look in on the pinto, but Jack had done it anyway. He’d been gone longer than was needed to just look, come back with horsehair on his jacket sleeve, and wondered if the gelding still needed special handling, he was looking so good. Ennis doubted that, since the pinto, more than any other horse he’d taken in, had needed all Ennis’s caring. There’d always been the promise, though, that there might be a fine horse there, if only he’d recover from whatever bad the world had handed him.

“I imagine,” Springfield said, “that you’re the one who would usually do that. Move the horse, check on it, feed it. Not Jack doing it for you. Right?”

“Yeah,” Ennis said, his throat tightening, even though he knew he was being played like a monkey on a string. “I haven’t even seen them since I got home.” It was like the horses lived on the Moon, so far away.

“Mister Del Mar,” Springfield said, leaning over the table toward him and tapping the shorts again. “If we’re going to get you back on your feet so you can do that again, you’ve got to cooperate with me.”

“I don’t wear -- ”

“I need to have access to the muscles in your legs and see that you’re doing the exercises properly.” Springfield nodded toward the bedroom. “You can put the shorts on in there. I’m sure I got you the right size.”

Seemed like Springfield wouldn’t budge on this, and Ennis knew it. All he’d done with their fool talking had been to waste time. But damn right he wasn’t gonna strip down there in front of the man. 

With a frown, Ennis grabbed the shorts, hitched himself up and went, not into the bedroom, cause that would’ve been doing exactly as he’d been told, but into the bathroom. 

It took some effort to get his jeans off, but he did it without falling over. Then he ripped the tag off the shorts, threw it in the sink, and sat down on the toilet to pull the damn things on. They fit, like Springfield had said they would. Ennis spared a thought that of course they would, since the man had been so damn close on Friday, hovering like a mother watching her child take his first steps. 

His legs sure were puny, thin as saplings swaying in the breeze, with no sign of the muscle he needed. He frowned down at the bruises. Most were faded, mainly a puke-looking yellow, but the big one way high up on his thigh, so close as to be on speaking terms with his dick, the one that Sandra in the hospital had said pretty much was the cause of most of his walking problems, that one was still angry purple, welling up from down deep. It was the devil’s own tattoo. Ugly. Jack couldn’t like the looks of it, for sure, if he saw Ennis without clothes on -- or wearing shorts -- and Ennis didn’t either.

He looked toward the closed door. Well, Springfield was gonna see it peeking out from under the line of where the shorts hit him, cause those shorts were short, damn it. That had to be okay, even though Ennis felt half naked with his legs bare, like some girl in a bikini who shouldn’t be seen on a beach. Well, he was half-naked, wasn’t he? He thought about staying exactly where he was, cause he wasn’t any woman and didn’t want to be seen that way.

When he came back out of the bathroom, he expected to flinch when Springfield’s eyes fell on him. But the kitchen was empty. Instead, the third chair nobody usually sat in had been pulled into the front room, and Springfield was standing next to it.

“We’ll work here where there’s more room,” he said. 

He walked over as steady as he could while the therapist watched him, taking in his spindly legs and that bruise and about every other thing too, he was sure, doing his therapist thing. 

Fifteen minutes later, Ennis knew that drill-sergeant-Bill had shown up again, and he had torture planned. Springfield stood with his hands on his hips, watching Ennis’s every move as he struggled with what should have been so simple. 

“I realize it’s difficult, but you’ve got to keep going.”

“I know,” Ennis gritted out between clenched teeth. He wasn’t gonna quit, it just wasn’t so easy. He forced his feet to move again. He wasn’t sure what rubbing his shoes like windshield wipers against the floor was doing for his leg, but he could feel the burn in his thighs. Hurt like a sonuvabitch.

“You sure this,” he took a breath he needed, “is gonna help?”

“Absolutely,” Springfield said. “Get those toes out. Pivot on the heel, but get your toes out wider.” 

Springfield squatted, held the heel of Ennis’s shoe steady, and pushed his foot out. “I got an eighty-two-year-old stroke victim up and walking around using exercises exactly like these.”

Ennis expected that man was like Floyd, one of those people who didn’t show his age a bit. He felt every one of his forty years, three times over. Where was the strength he’d always been proud of? How come all those years of hard work weren’t paying off for him now? 

“Again. Five more repetitions,” Springfield said as he stood up. He looked down at Ennis’s feet like they were important. “Good, good,” Springfield encouraged, and it seemed he did a lot more of that this second session than he had back on Friday when he’d first come into the house. 

Even so, there were so many new exercises that he couldn’t do right or long enough; energy drained out of Ennis along with his sweat. 

Damn, but it was hard.

Forty-five minutes after they’d started, Bill said, “Okay, that’s enough of that for today.”

“What?” Ennis managed to get past his lips. He wanted to lay flat in the worst way, but he needed everything the therapist could throw at him. “Thought we had another fifteen minutes to go.”

“We do.”

“We don’t have to quit. I can do it.”

As if to prove himself wrong, Ennis swayed where he’d been holding on to the back of the chair. He hoped that hadn’t been seen, but of course it was. Never far from where Ennis was making an ass of himself with the arm swinging and the leg lifting, Springfield was there in a second with a hand on Ennis’s elbow, steadying him. 

“I’m sure you could, but now’s the time for the massage.”

He wasn’t sure he’d heard that right. “What?”

“Part of your recovery process will be massage techniques administered after the physical therapy. We need to get the blood flowing where you’ve been injured most.”

Ennis squinted at him, not liking the sound of that one bit. Only Jack ever ... “That’s not ... I don’t need that.”

Bill put pressure on his arm and turned him toward the table. They walked toward it together, not Ennis’s idea at all. “Yes, you do. Massage can reduce inflammation, focus healing where it needs to be, and help with pain. You’ll see.” 

He was more or less pushed down into his chair, though first Springfield pulled it out and turned it so he was facing the side door instead of the table. The therapist squatted to his right side without touching him. 

“I don’t need it,” Ennis said again, cause he didn’t like this, Springfield looking at him so close, the idea of massage with all its touching. If only it’d been a woman, then maybe ... but it was nice-guy-Bill who sort of looked like Jack. “You can leave right now and we’ll call it good.” He was so worn out, that was probably a good idea. 

“Mister Del Mar, you do need therapeutic massage. I understand that you’re uncomfortable with the idea and you don’t like it when I touch you ... ”

So, Springfield had picked up on that. Ennis didn’t know he’d been so obvious. 

“ ... but let’s just give this a try, okay?”

Ennis took a breath and looked over to the laundry room. Some clean sheets from their bed that Jack must have washed over the weekend when Ennis was snoozing were piled on top of the washer. 

“How about this? We’ll concentrate on your feet, ankles, and lower legs today. You can stop me at any time.”

He should have folded those sheets before Springfield showed up at the door. Though it wasn’t like him and Jack had done anything in that bed lately to make washing needed. The way he felt, it didn’t seem likely anything would happen tonight either. 

Fighting against how the ground dropped out from under him when he let his thoughts go in that direction, Ennis looked at Bill again, hunkered down by his feet, off to the side. 

“What’s the reason for it again?” There was a memory, hazy because it’d been so long ago, of when Alma had rubbed the strain out of his shoulders after he’d shoveled for the county all day. Afterward, she’d wanted sex, and he’d given it to her. He hadn’t let her do that for him again.

“It speeds healing,” Bill said simply, “and it helps with pain. Among many other benefits. I’ve done massage for hundreds of patients. You really don’t have anything to be concerned about.” 

Bill Springfield had no idea what he was concerned about, what fears made him shiver, what hopes he was aiming for, groping like a blind man. Nobody knew, not even Jack, for sure not Jack, and Ennis was not gonna open up his mouth to this new-met-man. But .... 

Right here in front of him, new-met or not, was Ennis’s ticket back to himself, if there even was such a thing. Was he gonna trust what Springfield said? 

Ennis didn’t like it -- he didn’t like most of what had happened to him the past weeks -- but he knew he wasn’t gonna get well by himself. Feet, ankles, lower legs. He could let that happen.

“All right.”

“Good. Just sit back and relax.”

It was flat out awful, having Springfield take off his shoes and socks without even asking. He jerked his feet away but Springfield pulled them back, acting like nothing had happened. The truth was, it would have been hard for him to bend over like that and do it himself. 

Once he was in bare feet, Bill pulled his case over and got out a bottle of lotion. It looked a lot like the KY him and Jack .... Hell. Ennis looked away quickly, gripping the sides of his chair, down toward a coffee-spill spot on the floor. He wished Springfield would just get started. It would’ve been better if he’d moved to sit somewhere else, wouldn’t it? Not stayed in this normal, everyday chair where he -- 

Ennis jumped right where he was, sitting down. Damn, but those fingers were cold! No, not cold, they were warm. They were -- what the hell were they? He looked down at what was going on, on his own skin.

Like he’d already done a time or two -- maybe a therapist specialty? -- Springfield ignored him jumping like a jackrabbit and kept doing what he was doing, running his fingertips all over both legs, knees down to toes. He took his time about it, when Ennis sort of wished he’d hurry up. He was tired, his leg ached with a steady throb, and enough was enough, wasn’t it? And why didn’t Springfield use more of his hand, the palm, or a harder touch, cause wasn’t that what massage was about? But no, just the fingertips, all the way to his toes now, and then back up to his knees to start again. Ennis braced himself, cause shouldn’t it feel ticklish, such a light touch? But no, it didn’t. There must be a trick to it. 

Okay, a third time, this time just his bad right leg, both hands now. The fingertips, they weren’t so bad, though he couldn’t see what they accomplished that was such a big deal. 

Springfield kept his head down, seeming to be concentrating on where each touch went, going faster now, using big sweeps. After a minute he stopped that and gently pulled Ennis’s right foot to prop on his own bent knee. Ennis let him do it. 

“Does this put pressure on your thigh?” Springfield asked. 

Well, sure it did, what else could he expect? But no worse than it’d been these past few minutes. He shook his head no. 

“Is there much pain? Stretching or pulling?”

Ennis remembered not being able to feel much of anything in his thigh back in the hospital. This steady thumping up by that bruise, not a good feeling, was way better than nothing at all. “It’s all right,” he said. 

“Good. Let me know if there’s any problem.” 

Springfield started on his toes, his rubbing a confusing combination of gentle and yet hard, taking time with each toe, pushing blood into them from the heel forward. Ennis couldn’t take his eyes off what was happening, hardly blinking. It was like watching a wild animal, maybe a bear or a cougar. A big cat might be beautiful in its own way, slinking around up in the mountains, but if a man wasn’t careful, watching its every step, it could turn in a second, jump, and tear your throat out. Though what kind of sudden move he thought Springfield would make, he wasn’t sure.

Springfield sent him a glance from under his eyelashes. His dark eyes really weren’t anything like Jack’s. “Relax,” he said again. “Lean back.”

The therapist’s hands paused, waiting. If Ennis stayed where he was, tensed and sort of bent over, as if to get as close to the action as he could, maybe Springfield would call it a day and stop this. He considered. Springfield waited patiently, and it wasn’t hard to understand that was how the man operated. Though Ennis wasn’t so inclined, he leaned back against the chair. 

“You can close your eyes if you want to.”

Like that was gonna happen.

What happened instead was that five minutes later, Ennis was a puddle. He didn’t know how it had happened, one minute flowing into the next and then the next, and how Springfield had done that, made that change in him. Made him go from paying attention to his aching thigh to how good it felt in his one right foot. He still wasn’t sure Bill Springfield, therapist-from-the-county, knew what he was doing overall, but Ennis was certain he was a Grade A foot massager. And ankle massager, cause he was moving up the leg now. Ennis had to stop himself from making a noise that showed how much he liked this. Wouldn’t be right. 

But, damn, this felt good. It was shameful, how it sent him into the soft and womanly land. Jack and him had rubbed each other now and then, like that time in Childress when he’d wanted to do something for Jack’s sadness, but it’d never happened quite like this. Ennis opened one eye and peered down at those moving hands, trying to fix in his mind how it was being done. Maybe he could touch Jack’s feet just like this sometime. Maybe Jack would do it for him, cause he sure wouldn’t complain if that happened. 

Damn, Springfield caught him looking. Ennis had to give him credit, though; only the tiniest twinkle showed in his eyes.

“Doing okay?”

Ennis grunted but didn’t like how that sounded. “Sure,” he was quick to say.

Springfield’s fingers kept working, moving up his leg. “I saw my cousin on Sunday.” 

“Who?”

“My cousin Marge, who works with Jack? She got a lot off her chest. Her boss is being unbelievably cruel, some of the things he says to her. Mr. Hamilton.”

Ennis gathered his scattered wits. “Sure. Corliss Hamilton. He’s a bastard and a half.”

“She tried to pretend it wasn’t getting to her, but I could tell it was. I told her she should quit, but for some reason I can’t imagine, she doesn’t want to.”

“It’s not just her,” Ennis offered. “I think he’s got it in for everybody who works there.” 

“That doesn’t make sense. He’ll run off all his skilled workers, and then where will that leave the feedlot? Well, I don’t care. I just don’t like to hear about Marge being talked to that way.”

It was hard to take his attention from the things Springfield was doing to Ennis’s calf muscle. Somewhere in there it hurt, soreness he was finding, but mostly it was release of tension, plus relief that it felt better than a man had a right to expect. “It isn’t right to make a woman cry.”

Springfield’s head came up, though his hands kept moving. “She cries?”

Ennis nodded. “That’s what Jack says. He doesn’t like it either. Grates on him something bad.” 

“At least they’re friends.”

“Friends?”

“Jack and Marge. She says they’re friends, that the friends she’s met there help make it tolerable.” 

Ennis shook his head. He’d never understand the workings of a woman’s mind. He doubted Jack thought of Marge that way. 

And now Springfield was up to Ennis’s knee, and he tensed, ready to say something if those hands tried to move higher. He’d said okay to this, but only so far .... But it seemed Springfield kept his word. He put down the right leg, and Ennis winced as the jarring sent a painful lancing up his thigh. 

“Okay?” Springfield asked, cause there wasn’t much he didn’t notice. 

“Okay. Just a little ....” Ennis rubbed above his knee. Maybe ... maybe the rehab wasn’t really helping. Maybe it was making things worse instead. 

Springfield picked up Ennis’s left foot and began things over again. Whatever magic had been going on, though, had disappeared. Ennis tried to hold himself strong against the pain, started up again now and not stopping, and he barely paid attention to how his foot was being worked over. Somewhere in the distance he knew it felt good, the same as before, but too much was pushing against it now. 

Not soon enough, Springfield cleaned off the lotion with a cloth, stood up, and rubbed his hands together. “That’s it for today.” 

All of Ennis’s day packed into the past hour. He couldn’t wait for Springfield to leave.

The therapist gave instructions for ice and repeated what the doctor had said about pain medication -- take a prescription pill if he needed to, switch to over-the-counter medication as soon as he could -- but Ennis paid no attention, cause he could barely keep his head up. He watched while good-guy-Bill washed his hands at the sink, picked up his bag, seemed to give him a knowing look, and said, “You did well today. I’ll see you again on Wednesday afternoon.” 

Ennis nodded, pretending he was all casual about it, but in truth he couldn’t imagine getting up and shutting the door behind the man. 

*****

Twenty whole minutes. It took twenty whole minutes for Ennis to get back the energy to stand up, put a casserole in the oven, put on his socks, shoes, and jeans again, dry-swallow a pain pill, limp into the bedroom, and flop down on the bed, cause he’d never get caught sleeping with his head down on the table ever again.

This was what he felt like after only one full hour of rehab. What would he be like in a week? Ennis turned his leg against the mattress, trying to find the best spot where it would hurt least, and wished he’d thought to close the blinds so the slanting, late afternoon light didn’t shine in. Though maybe that was a good thing; he couldn’t let himself sleep, since he had to be alert for whenever Jack came home. He figured he’d hear the truck coming down the drive and manage to get out into the kitchen before Jack would be any the wiser. 

He blinked three times to fight off his sleepiness and stared up at the white ceiling, that was sort of glowing with the edges of the sunlight on the walls. He’d need to tell Jack how Springfield was worried about Marge, and how he might be angling for Ennis to train his horses, though only if there weren’t complications and if Ennis was diligent and it would be weeks before they’d know. 

But then he remembered Jack didn’t know anything about Bill-not-Barbara. He couldn’t tell Jack anything about anything unless he admitted that lie .... 

There wasn’t any sound in the room at all. So quiet. No, there was something. He could hear the blood-sound in his ears, and his breathing whistling in and out. In and out. In and out.

Couldn’t fall asleep, wasn’t gonna do that. Ennis rolled his head to the side and ended up nose to nose with a dark strand of hair on Jack’s pillow. Sort of falling off that pillow into the space between his and Jack’s, almost like Jack’s hair was reaching toward him. He contemplated that for a while, liking the idea, wondering if he should pick it up, and if he did, what he would do with it. Wouldn’t be right to just toss it in the trash, Jack’s hair and all. That hair reminded him of the hawk’s feather. Jack had put it in his nightstand drawer once Ennis had come home, saying he wanted to keep the feather until he bought another good hat to wear it in.

Jack and his dark hats. Looked so fine in them, though Ennis didn’t think he’d ever said so. Had he? No. But still, fine. 

Scratch. Scratch, scratch, the sounds of an insect against the window, probably, trying to get into the warmth of the house. A month ago, there’d been summer heat lingering. Now, autumn’s on-again, off-again weather.

A month ago. Damn, a month ago life had made more sense. He hadn’t let a man into his house for an hour at a time, let him stand so close, and then let him rub his legs. A month ago, he hadn’t known he would like it when that man rubbed his legs. He would have sworn he wouldn’t. Unless it was Jack. 

And what was it about Bill Springfield that made Ennis like him? Ennis didn’t usually take to a person right away. He’d even held off on Floyd for a while, but maybe Springfield was one of those people everybody got along with. That had to be it. Who was like that? Not him. Jack, sort of. Yeah, people liked Jack. That waiter in the Angel Fire restaurant had seemed likable. Floyd, he bet everybody liked Floyd. Who else?

_Ring!_

Ennis jerked upright, blinking, not sure if he’d been awake or sleeping. It took a bunch of rings and some cursing before he got to the phone, shuffling over to Jack’s side of the bed and reaching. He couldn’t ignore it, since Junior or Jenny might be needing him for something. 

“’lo?” He coughed and tried again. “Hello?” He managed to get his legs over the side of the bed and sat up straight. 

“If it isn’t Mister Conversation himself. How are you doing?”

It’d been months since he’d had the bad luck to pick up the phone when the coach was on the other end. “Like you give a damn how I am,” he said. 

“Hey, don’t say that. I care, I really do.”

“You’re calling for Jack. He’s not home yet and you should’ve known that. He keeps a working man’s hours.”

“He’s always working late.”

Ennis doubted Jack was staying at the feedlot for the pleasure of it. “You’re not lying.”

“When John called me the other week, I was shocked to learn that you were in the hospital.”

Ennis grunted and caught the cord in his fingers. Shelborne sounded too smooth by half. Not that Ennis cared what Donkey Dong thought or didn’t think. He could jump off a cliff and Ennis wouldn’t notice or care. Of course, Jack would. 

“How has it gone since you’ve been home? Are you up and about?”

Ennis looked down at his leg. “I’m okay.” 

“John was beside himself with worry when you were in Santa Fe.”

It pained him to think of Jack blabbing about how he was feeling to this fellow. Then again, Ennis hadn’t exactly been up to listening. He’d gone a long way over the past months toward trying to be the man Jack talked to and could depend on. That was something else he’d have to work on, to bring it back. 

“I could hardly believe the story he told about the two of you getting struck by lightning.”

“It happened, so you’d better believe it.”

“Don’t get so testy, I’m not saying it didn’t happen. You sure are prickly, Del Mar.” 

“And you’re an asshole, Shelborne. Sending me flowers in the hospital. How dumb can you get?”

“What, you didn’t like them? I spent enough on them.”

“If you want to waste your money, that’s your business, but don’t you ever send anything to me again. I’m not your friend.”

“But you’re John’s partner,” Shelborne said as if he was standing in church with his hand over his heart. “What was I supposed to do, ignore what had happened?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t send those flowers to rile me up.”

Shelborne chuckled. “Looks like it worked.”

“Do you have some message for Jack before I hang up on you?”

“Why don’t you tell him that I got a call from Jeffrey last week.”

What Jack saw in Donkey Dong, Ennis couldn’t tell. He couldn’t talk to him for two minutes without wanting to close him up in a casket. “Fine.”

He put down the receiver like he was letting go of a hundred pound weight. He was just wondering if he should fall back against the mattress or force himself to stand up like a man when he heard a truck turning into the drive. If that was Jack, the sound of the Ford’s engine sure had changed. Who the hell could be barging into his life now? First better-be-good-Bill, then the coach, now .... 

It wasn’t so easy to force his legs to take him into the kitchen, but when he got there and peeked out the window, he saw that it was Betty Jo’s 4Runner, and Matt was driving. News to him, that his folks were letting him drive, but now he thought of it, how else had the boy been getting here for the horses? Probably it’d been because of Ennis being out of commission, and they’d been forced into it. 

Matt got out of the Toyota and pulled Davey out the driver’s side too, like he was a sack of potatoes or something. Not that the kid seemed to mind. He went off like a shot once his feet hit the ground, straight for the shadows of the forest. 

“Davey!” Matt yelled. “Come back here!”

Ennis watched the little one lead the teenager on a chase. Though they got too far away to be heard, he could see how Davey was giggling, with his mouth drawn back into a wide smile, and how Matt could have caught him a few times but let the game go on. Finally, though, enough was enough. Matt picked him up, tucked the boy under his arm so he was swimming in mid-air, and headed for the house. Ennis got himself to the door and opened it for them.

“Hi, Ennis,” Matt said, panting a little. 

“Ennis!” Davey said too. 

“You here for the horses?” Ennis asked.

“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t get to it earlier today, but -- ”

“You don’t have to explain anything. You’re doing me a big favor, you and Floyd. You ever gonna put him down?” Ennis nodded to Davey.

“Would you watch him for me? Mom said I should take him with me to the stable and not bother you, but the Natural’s all fired up today and hard to handle.”

“Your mom don’t like you calling him that.”

“Ah, come on. It doesn’t hurt anything. It’s just the way it is, the way he is. Natural. Right, Davey?” Matt finally set the boy on his feet and tousled his hair. Davey made a sound that showed he didn’t appreciate being petted like a dog. He squirmed against Matt’s hold on him and then squirted out like a boy set on high adventure. 

Ennis watched him turn the corner by the washing machine and head for Bobby’s room. “What’d he do, swallow some jumping beans or something?” 

“Too much Coca-Cola, I think. Besides, he likes to explore. I won’t leave him with you long.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Take all the time you should with the horses. Make sure the pinto gets the special feed -- ”

“Right, the special feed you give him. I know all about it. Floyd told me, my mom told me, and now you. I’m fifteen, you know.” 

He was gone with a banging of the screen door. Ennis chuckled at him; could it be the teenager had grown another two inches since he’d seen Matt last? 

A crash and then a yelp from Bobby’s room proved Davey needed supervising even if all Ennis wanted to do was sit. There went the blinds that Jack had spent so much time hanging. “You come on out here,” he hollered. The boy listened to him, appearing with a guilty-as-sin look on his face, but when Ennis took a few tottering steps his way, Davey was off again to the back room. 

“Zoom,” Ennis heard once he’d disappeared again. 

He shook his head but couldn’t help the smile that came out too. “You think you’re a race car driver?” he called out. “Or a race car?” 

It took a few minutes, some hanging onto the dryer, and barely managing to get down the step, but Ennis made it to the back room. He found Davey sitting in the middle of the braided rug, with a flood of _Time_ and _U.S. News & World Report_ magazines spread out on the floor around him. 

Ennis closed the door he and Jack rarely used, so at least the boy couldn’t go running all over the house again. He sat in his old chair and watched while Davey turned pages, tore out pictures, and set about exploring the creases in the rug. He found a dead beetle that he held up to show off. 

“Yeah, that’s real fine. But if you find any money, it’s mine,” Ennis told him.

Even in the back of the old house, the casserole cooking came to his nose, and his stomach rumbled. When was Jack coming home? It was Monday, but he guessed that didn’t mean Corliss Hamilton couldn’t keep Jack past quitting time. Ennis dropped his head back against the cushion and frowned up at the ceiling. It wasn’t right that Jack’d had to leave Santa Fe earlier than he’d wanted to, and it wasn’t right that he couldn’t come home at a decent hour when Ennis sure could use the company. 

“‘Nis?” Davey stood in front of him with his thumb stuck in his mouth and eyes round like twin full moons. He clutched a bunch of magazine pages in his hand.

This time it was easier to pick the boy up and bring him to his lap. “Here you go,” he said as he got Davey settled mostly off to the left side within the curve of his arm. “If you want me to read them to you, you’re out of luck. I don’t have my glasses, and you wouldn’t want to hear about Reagan and the Russians anyway.”

“Story?” Davey asked in his little-boy voice. 

“You want a story? Huh. Well ....” It’d been years since he’d done that for Junior or Jenny, but there’d been a time when his girls asking for a story from him had been one of the joys of his life. One of the only joys, really. Back then he’d had the family he’d craved, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. His little girls had been the only sparks in a long darkness. 

He looked down at Davey, heavy and slack in his arms now as the running around he’d done that day must be catching up with him at last. His eyelids were drooping, and if Ennis knew anything about kids, he wouldn’t be awake much longer. 

“Here’s a story for you,” he said, keeping his voice low and even. “You just lay back and listen, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Davey said from around his thumb.

“Once there was a boy who lived on a horse ranch. He was a fine boy, as fine as ever you’ll see. He had a mom who loved him something fierce and took him with her wherever she went. He had a dad who worked real hard so he could have everything he needed, and he loved his boy too.”

Ennis paused and stretched out his leg, but that didn’t help much. “This boy liked to run and play all day. Up and down he went, all over, having a great time. His brothers called him the Natural, and they didn’t mean about baseball either. Though that might not be so nice, least that’s what his mom says, they don’t mean anything bad by it. It just means ... it means Davey’s ... that he’s okay. You get that?”

Even if Davey had understood him, he wouldn’t know it because the little one was fast asleep. Ennis wasn’t one to wake a sleeping giant; right now his peace and quiet was important to him. 

He sat there with the boy breathing deep and even against him, there in the back room where it seemed to him that Jack and him lived a lot. He remembered clear as day the very last time he’d held one of his girls like this. It’d been when Jenny was in the fourth grade. She’d got a bad grade on some test she’d took, and just like she’d always been an actress, she raised a big fuss. He’d taken her on his knee to try to calm her, and she’d fallen asleep crying as he rocked her in their old rocking chair. 

Her weight on him, Davey’s weight on him. He’d had girls, not boys, and not many men would want a Down’s Syndrome kid for their own, but the lines blurred in his head. Davey could’ve been his. 

He thought of rocking Davey, which he could’ve done if he’d sat in Jack’s new chair, and his eyes closed. The world was full of might-have-beens, wasn’t it? Davey could’ve been his, he might’ve sat in the other chair ....

Jack could’ve been his years before. If he’d been able to get past that feeling of everybody looking at him after the divorce, he wouldn’t have sent Jack away. If he’d listened to Jack dreaming about a cow and calf operation of their own when Jack had finally uncovered him in Riverton, they could’ve found a place to live seventeen years ago. And if he’d come down from Brokeback a real man, a man who knew who he was and what he wanted, him and Jack would’ve had a whole life together. It would’ve been ... natural. 

“Wish I had a picture of this,” came Jack’s soft voice. 

Ennis opened his eyes to see his man come back from the feedlot at last, standing hip cocked to the side in his fine work clothes. He’d done it again, fallen asleep, and Jack had caught him at it. 

For a moment the old feelings flared -- he wasn’t good enough, not strong enough -- and he wanted to lash out. But then he felt again Davey’s head against his shoulder and knew that responsibility if he was to holler now. And he saw the fond smile on Jack’s face. Jack wasn’t looking on him like he’d failed some way. Jack was looking on him like ... well, the way they felt on each other. At least, the way Ennis felt on Jack, even if he didn’t say it most of the time. 

Maybe he should say it more. Then Jack wouldn’t need to talk to the coach so much. 

Ennis raised his head a bit and fought to find some words. It didn’t surprise him when none came. But Jack -- who always did understand him -- his eyes brightened. His feet moved so he was a lot closer, and he leaned down with one arm out to brace himself against the back of the chair, by Ennis’s ear.

“Hey,” was all Jack whispered. But then Jack kissed him, and Ennis did his best to return it. 

It damn near startled him into jumping up when he felt another set of lips against his cheek. “Kiss!” Davey said. 

Jack didn’t jump back; he laughed that special laugh of his, full of the world’s delights, that Ennis always had leaned toward like a man hungry for what he didn’t have.

“Aren’t you the whippersnapper,” Jack said, and then he kissed Ennis again, regardless of the little boy who watched them with contented eyes. 

*****

_It had been impossible to stay in high school. Impossible, too, to stay in the house that him and K.E. and their sister had lived in with their parents, though they’d tried more than two years. The jobs in and around Sage weren’t enough, three kids scrabbling. So they had to leave. K.E. had found a ranch job out by Dubois that paid real money, and they didn’t ask how old his kid brother was, that he said he’d bring along to work too. Sharon was already gone the week before, off to waitressing for the tourists near Yellowstone._

_K.E.’s pick-up, held together with wire and hope, at least had a transmission. The truck bed, patched brown and red, was an open sea dotted with two bags and two boxes, all they owned. It stood in front of their life-house, now property of the bank, waiting for them to jump in, turn the key, and drive away into the great unknown. K.E. was already outside, leaning against the dropped truck gate, but Ennis wasn’t._

_Ennis stood in a doorway inside the house, between the room where his mama had sat and sewed -- the living room with all the light in it -- and the room where she’d cooked day in and day out, giving him tastes sometimes before the others, as he was the youngest, and sometimes apples. The kitchen. His eyes roved over both rooms, trying to pack in every detail, shoving them in his pockets so he could take them out later. His pockets, he well knew, had holes and weren’t all that big._

_“Come on, Ennis. Let’s get going,” K.E. called from outside._

_Ennis didn’t want to take the worn steps to the upstairs, where his daddy had whipped him good three times in the bathroom, and time after time in the alcove under the eaves, where he slept with K.E. He didn’t want to go behind the kitchen to the enclosed porch, all raw wood with the paint flaked away, where the pastor and Mrs. Hundley had laid out his folks after they’d fallen off the curve, so the neighbors could pay their respects._

_He wanted to stay where he was, between light and food. If he left .... When he left, he feared he’d forget what she looked like, at the stove or with the needle held between her teeth. Already, her image was fading. Mama hadn’t been one to smile a lot, but he remembered when she did. Remembered now, anyway._

_There’d been one night, before the beatings started and when his daddy was only the man who was gone in the morning, home in the dark, and smelled of tobacco and whiskey. On that one night Mama had turned on the radio and danced with his daddy. K.E. was off down the road learning mechanics, working on the Manchester’s truck, but Sharon had sat with Ennis down on the floor in the corner and watched with him._

_He remembered how he’d felt. The music, her favorite song, she’d said. The yellow light from the overhead bulbs, shining down on happy, upturned faces, his daddy humming in time. The twirl of his mama’s skirt, and the turn of two sets of feet, perfectly in rhythm, nobody stepping on nobody. The sweet smell of pot roast and onions, their dinner that night, shared around the table they’d sat at together. Something rose in him, nine years old or maybe younger, some wonderful joy that he could only think belonged in church, except it was in him, in their house, this house where they lived, where his mother danced and gave him apples._

_“Ennis! Come on!”_

_Something rose in him now, fourteen years old but knowing more than fourteen, a feeling that rolled over him like dirty water and choked him. The whole world outside this house wasn’t where he’d found that one night of grace._

_K.E. slammed open the front door and saw him standing there. “You can’t take the house with you, Ennis,” he said, as only an older brother without any patience could say. “Let’s go.”_

_And so he went to where there was no house or home, determined to work hard, determined to save his quarters in a coffee can, determined to make a home, never to leave it once he’d made it, to find his peace and keep it._

*****

There was nothing contented in their kitchen three days later, on Thursday evening, with Ennis sitting at the table after dinner and Jack at the sink, washing dishes. 

“Goddamn all cattle ranchers,” Jack fumed, up to his elbows in suds as he scrubbed at a casserole dish. “You wouldn’t believe how stupid they are.”

Ennis waited with his hands held between his knees, a little slumped over, not saying anything. Jack had been on a rampage ever since he’d swooped in half an hour ago, with the full night air coming in behind him. “What a shitty day,” he’d said as he kissed Ennis hello, their lips barely grazing, and off he’d gone, complaining about this, that, and the other thing. 

Ennis had spent a quiet day, not seeing a soul, just him and those exercises Springfield expected him to take on. After he’d seen Jack off in the morning, he’d stood in the doorway, not doing anything or thinking of much, not stopping the silence from seeping into him. Clouds had hugged the sky, gray all over, without a hint that there’d really be rain. The wind seemed to be pushing them slowly to the east, and the tops of the trees in their forest were swayed that way, like old men bent over, walking one step at a time. 

No birds calling right then. No sound of a car or truck passing down on the road. No sound of Jack’s voice or the expectation that Springfield would show up to boss him around. No work he could go to, not the way he was. 

He’d put his hand up against the screen and at least felt the touch of cool air trying to find its way inside. 

“It’s as clear as the nose on old man Olson’s face,” Jack said to him, still washing dishes so strong that they’d never be cleaner, Ennis judged. That man could make a commotion anywhere he went. “And his nose is big, let me tell you. I tell him and I tell him, but does he listen to me? Nope, nobody listens to me.”

“I listen,” Ennis told him, but Jack was busy with the water on, rinsing suds off a plate, so he didn’t think he was heard. 

“His ranch is more desert than land, even more than most of the ranchers in these parts. He loses money with every steer he keeps for grazing on his place and doesn’t give to us for fattening. I showed him the figures!” Jack put the dish in the rack for drying so hard that Ennis figured a crack might show. A sad-sack pair of jeans hung sort of loose on Jack’s hips, and Ennis wondered if he’d maybe lost a pound or two. 

“He’s already got two hundred head with us, and he’s making out like a bandit with them. And losing money on the rest of his herd. Why the hell won’t he face facts and let us have all of them?”

Ennis didn’t mind listening, not much, though it wasn’t his favorite way of hearing Jack’s voice. Jack’d had a hard day, to be sure. But this was just the way Jack was, blowing off steam, and a man couldn’t do that moving his mouth in front of a mirror. He needed an audience. Jack especially did, as Ennis couldn’t imagine him living alone. Him, yeah, those long years in his shack, nothing and nobody. But now, listening to Jack? Even his yapping made a good change from the dragging silence of Ennis’s day.

“And James! What kind of burr has got on his ass? Used to be a good guy, the kind of guy you could have a drink with at the end of the day, but no, not anymore. It’s schedule this and schedule that. More and more he’s just like Corliss.” 

Ennis ventured a comment. “Corliss giving you trouble about filling the lot?”

“Corliss! That motherfucking goddamned sonuvabitch,” Jack raged. 

Ennis’s eyes widened at the heat in those words; Jack sure was feeling everything this night like his skin had been rasped by sandpaper.

“If I managed to land every sale, like he says I should, we’d be five thousand head over capacity! Where does he want to keep the cattle, out on the highway? He should count himself damned lucky I’ve got some sense and know not to make promises we can’t keep.”

Ennis squinted, confused. “So you don’t really want Olson’s herd? Or you do?”

“Oh, hell, it hardly matters. Get it, don’t get it, nothing I do’s going to keep Corliss happy.”

It wasn’t right, that Jack should feel so hard about his work when, as far as Ennis could tell, he was doing everything the feedlot could ask of him. Jack seemed to be brooding on it now, quiet as he scrubbed silverware.

Ennis got to his feet -- three rehab sessions he’d had so far, and still getting up wasn’t an easy thing for him. Damnit, when would it be? -- and brought the last bowl from dinner to the counter next to Jack. “That asshole sounds like L.D.,” he said, shoving it toward the sink. “How do you get stuck with bosses like that?”

Jack sighed, a sad, puny sound, and let a fork drop back into the water. “Yeah,” he said, looking like no one in the whole world was on his side. “L.D. and my daddy too. Never could do anything right ....” He picked up the bowl Ennis had left, but then he turned around and pointed a hard finger in Ennis’s face. 

It had been a while since Jack had done that, and Ennis frowned against it. There wasn’t any call for it. 

Jack kept the finger pointing even as Ennis took a step away. “And now I can’t do a damn thing right for you, either.”

“What the hell?” Ennis gestured to the sink, as if that told all, when any fool knew it didn’t. But still. Look at what Jack was doing right then.

“You and that therapist are doing all the work,” Jack said like a kid who was missing out on the best treat cause his folks had sent him to bed. “I show up here when it’s already dark, eat dinner, and that’s about all I’m good for around here. That and washing dishes.” Jack made a face and plunged the bowl into the suds. Water splashed up onto the counter and his shirt. 

Ennis turned away and tottered back to the table. It was late, he was tired, Jack was going on and on, and he wasn’t so strong on his feet. 

“And I don’t know shit about anything,” Jack kept going behind him. “Not here with you, or what’s really going on at the -- ” Ennis heard Jack take a deep breath. “Mainly with you. I don’t know shit about how you’re doing or anything. Like you had rehab today, right?” 

Ennis tried to ease himself back down onto his chair like he mostly could do now, and Springfield’s work, he had to admit, had helped with that. But instead of doing it right he lost control of the going down. He plopped down off balance, and it hurt his tailbone. 

“Of course not,” he said, his irritation sounding out loud. “It’s Thursday, ain’t it? We do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“See?” Jack said, grabbing a dish towel and a handful of silverware to dry. “I’ve lost track of that, and shame on me for it.” 

“Ain’t your fault if -- ”

“And you’ve said shit-all about it,” Jack complained. “How was it? Yesterday, I mean.”

Jack sure was all wound up, but Ennis didn’t have a way out for him, to bring him down. The less said about the therapy sessions the better. “It was okay,” he said.

Jack walked across the room to where they kept knives and forks. “No, I really want to know. How long does she stay?”

Ennis did his best not to wince at the “she.” Now might be a good time to .... But no. “About an hour, I guess.” Ennis shrugged heavily, as if the weight of his not-telling-truth pressed on him. 

“Just an hour? Back in the hospital when they took you to the gym, it was longer than -- ”

“An hour. That’s what the insurance pays for, so that’s what I get.”

“What’s she got you doing? 

He wanted to turn their talk to something else, but nothing was happening in his life except what he didn’t want to talk about. “Stuff. Exercises. You know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Jack said, throwing the silverware into the drawer so it rattled. “Like what? Tell me about it, won’t you?” 

Ennis threw an irritated glance Jack’s way, and then he pointedly stuck a finger in his ear and wriggled it. “Hey now, no need to wake the dead with all your noise.”

“You’d think you were dead with all the telling you’re giving me. Come on.”

Hell, why was Jack pushing him on this? What, he was supposed to tell about how Springfield had him sticking his toes out? How Springfield’s hands were rubbing the aches from Ennis’s legs? Jack would think even less of him than he did already, with Ennis stuck in the house now for a full week doing nothing, being waited on like a child.

“Stuff with my leg.” He flicked a glance Jack’s way and saw the frown. “Some dumb exercises,” he added.

“Dumb? They can’t be dumb if -- ”

“They are if they don’t work!” Ennis said with heat. He clenched his one hand on the table, not looking at Jack, staring instead at his fist and feeling all his worries rise up like snakes. “You see me doing my work yet, huh? Walking down to the stable?” _Going at it with you in our bed?_

“Ennis, you’ve got to give it some time. They’re working, but -- ”

“Oh, yeah?” Ennis interrupted him. “Are you sneaking home and watching through the windows, seeing how I’m doing?”

“Hell, no, you know how Corliss is on my back, but for sure you -- ”

He didn’t know why he said it when it was the last thing he wanted to put in Jack’s thoughts. “You wouldn’t like what you saw if you turned Peeping Tom, cause there’s no difference, Jack. I’m like I am now.” Or worse, helpless, another man taking off his shoes and socks for him. Ennis pushed himself up from the table, needing to get away from this. “Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Hell if I know.” He took an unsteady step toward the bathroom and then another one, pretty damn obvious how he was having trouble. “I gotta take a piss.”

Jack followed him, wiping his hands on the towel, and Ennis knew Jack was ready to catch him if he fell. Hell, he wouldn’t fall. It’d been three days since that’d almost happened. He straightened himself up.

“And another thing,” Jack said from right behind him. “Why won’t you let me help you the way I could?”

The bathroom seemed like the only place for him now, away from Jack and his questions. “You help me plenty,” Ennis said, aiming for the counter to either side of the bathroom door, where he could lean a hand to help him stay up. 

“Ah, come on, you know that’s not true. You hardly ever even let me .... Like, why won’t you let me help you take a shower?” 

Ennis gritted his teeth. God damn it! Cause they’d both be naked in there, that’s why!

Jack never had known when to shut up. It was like he was born with his mouth moving. “I know you can’t stand in there on your own,” he said, “but I could go in with you and hold you up. It’s got to be better than the way you’re cleaning yourself now with-- ”

Hand on the counter at last, Ennis was able to turn around and tell Mr.-I-Can-Do-Everything-For-You-Jack, “I don’t need your help. You saying I stink?”

Jack threw the towel over his shoulder. “Oh for Pete’s sake. No, I’m not saying you stink! It’s just that.... Hell, Ennis, it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before. What’s the matter, you turned shy on me since the hospital?”

Into the bathroom Ennis went, slamming the door behind him. Behind him, there was conspicuous silence for a span of seconds, and then Jack’s voice. “Well, excuse me for caring.” Ennis heard every footstep as he stomped off. 

Hell. 

Since he was in there anyway, he washed under his pits after he pissed, but he didn’t do anything more. He’d been scrubbing at his hair in the sink every few days, and he took a washcloth to wipe himself down most mornings, like he’d done that day. It didn’t mean he felt clean. He did all that during the day, when nobody was there to see him. Nights were for Jack, even though during this night, not much good was happening. 

Now it was Ennis’s turn to sigh. 

When he came out of the bathroom, Jack was nowhere in sight. Ennis hunched his shoulder and turned toward the living room, what he called Lureen’s room in his head, though he never had told Jack that. It was a lot closer than the back room. 

The TV went on easy, probably the first time since Bobby had been there, and how long ago had that been? Ennis ignored whatever was babbling on the screen to figure that out. Jack’s birthday had been September 25th, and the boy had come the weekend before that, so .... Huh. Almost five weeks since Bobby. Halloween was but six days away.

The chair Lureen had got them wasn’t nearly as comfortable as what they had in the back room. Ennis tried to find a good way to sit, and then he scratched his back as best he could by rubbing himself against the cushion. The TV went on and on, nothing interesting, and what was Jack doing, anyway? Where in the house was he? There wasn’t much sense in them being apart like this when he’d looked forward to their together time all day. Together was the whole point. He supposed it wasn’t Jack’s fault that Ennis had no taste for proving his fears might be right, that Bill might be wrong about him walking right again. The other thing, Bill not having tits, that was about the same, not Jack’s fault that the county had sent him the wrong kind of therapist. 

The TV droned on, but Ennis listened mainly out into the house, trying to hear Jack. Finally, a bang came from Bobby’s room, and a curse he couldn’t quite make out, though he could imagine the words. So that’s where that man had gone. Ennis didn’t step foot there much and neither did Jack. It was like they ignored the room was there.

The dumb comedy with a laugh track switched over to the cop show, _Hill Street Blues._ He didn’t know any of the characters and he didn’t try to follow what was going on. Even with the TV sound and every once in a while evidence that Jack was in his son’s bedroom doing something, it felt quiet in Lureen’s room. As quiet as it had felt that morning with the gray skies. 

Sitting in this uncomfortable chair wasn’t his idea of a good way to spend the evening. With all the overtime hours Jack was working, it felt like he’d hardly seen Jack at all since he’d come home. Hell, he’d seen way more of Jack in the hospital. For sure he’d hardly talked to him lately. He’d talked more to good-guy Bill. 

Without thinking on it anymore, Ennis was up on his feet. He took his time getting to the laundry room, then turned to the half-open door of Bobby’s bedroom, where a shaft of bright light came out. He couldn’t see anything else though, until he reached out and pushed open the door. 

Jack looked over at him. He was standing on a chair he must’ve pulled into the room, set up before the big blank window where Davey had pulled down the blinds. The dark night showed through that window. Jack was holding a screwdriver with one hand, and with the other he was positioning the fallen-down bracket. 

Ennis stood there a few seconds, wondering if he was welcome. 

“Hey,” Jack said. 

“You want any help with that?” Ennis asked.

“Maybe later,” Jack said.

Like there was a rat’s chance of him being able to do anything useful around here, but at least Jack hadn’t said so. 

“You mind some company?” Ennis forced himself to say. 

“Don’t mind at all,” Jack said, and it seemed to Ennis that there was a glad side to those words. 

He sat down on the edge of Bobby’s bed, not losing control and hurting himself this time, though the bed was so soft it seemed nobody could. 

A minute or two passed with Jack repositioning the bracket one way and then another, and turning the screwdriver. Ennis couldn’t see hardly anything through the bare window, what with the sharp difference between the black outside and the light inside. Mainly he saw the reflection of Jack standing there in the glass. His worn out jeans that didn’t fit anymore even so pulled against his ass when he reached up. A good sight. 

Ennis maybe hadn’t made a mistake, coming in here.

“Sorry Davey yanked that down,” Ennis said.

“It’s alright,” Jack said, turning to look at him. “He didn’t mean it.”

“There’s mischief in him, but no bad.”

“Sorry it’s taken me a few nights to get to work on this.”

“S’okay. Not like you’ve had much time for it since then.”

Jack turned back to what he was doing. “I don’t have much heart for house repairs once I get home.” 

Ennis didn’t think that was really why Jack had been avoiding the room. “Bobby’ll come around, you know.”

“Maybe.”

“He talk to you while I was in the hospital?”

“Yeah. A couple times. He sounded normal, like nothing had happened between us at all.” 

Ennis grunted. “That might be for the best. Start over.”

“I guess.”

With a last turn of the screwdriver, Jack seemed to have finished what he was doing. He climbed down off the chair and moved as if to pick up the blinds and put them back against the window. But he didn’t. Instead, he came over to Ennis and sat down next to him on the bed, on his right side. They sat there like that for a little while, half a minute maybe, where they really had never sat before.

Ennis looked around, really looked at this room that Jack had made up special for his son. “This is a nice place you have for Bobby.”

“You think so?” Jack asked, and he looked down at the bedspread, laid a palm flat on it between them. 

“Yeah. Hope he appreciates it, that he’s got a place here with us.”

“I thought I’d do a little more at Christmas, maybe get him a stereo.”

“So long as he doesn’t play it too loud.”

“He was always good about that at home.”

“Good.” 

“Ennis?

“Yeah?”

“How are you doing? Really doing?”

Ennis took a breath. “I’m okay.”

“No, I mean seriously. Are you healing all right?”

There was a strange, unfamiliar impulse in him to lay it all out the way it was, to look at Jack’s face -- those blue eyes, asking and caring about him -- and tell him truth. Ennis didn’t know where it came from, except maybe that he’d been softened by the pain and all that went with his heart stopping and then starting again. 

That stranger deep inside, using his voice, wanted to say I don’t know that I’m healing at all. I don’t know what next month will bring, or next year, if I’ll still be crippled up like this. I can’t say it, though, cause saying it is past my strength. I don’t have the strength I thought I did. Don’t even have the balls to tell you my therapist’s a man. And there’s more, Jack, so goddamned much more, don’t want to think of it, trying so hard to force it from my thoughts, cause I’ve got to rely on what Springfield’s doing for me, getting me well, he’s got to know what he’s doing cause I’ve got everything riding on it, but there’s a dick problem, Jack. It’s not working and I’m half-afraid to even touch it now. You’re gonna notice sooner or later, but I want it to be later, to give the therapy a chance to work, or at least give us some more time here, like this, the way we are right now, side by side, before I’ve got to go if I’m no good that way anymore. I don’t want to go, Jack. I want things to be better than this, more together, talking like we used to do, remember, now and then, how we could say truth to each other? Remember how it was with us those weeks after we came home from Childress? Seems like a dream I can’t reach, that ease we had, I just can’t do it now, so much going on, hardly walking at all, weak as a kitten, falling asleep on the table, no good to you .... 

That stranger inside talked too much. Didn’t he know that if Jack knew this stuff, everything might change? He didn’t know what Jack would say. Ennis couldn’t trust him and take that chance.

“I think it’s going okay,” Ennis said.

“You seem better to me.”

“Maybe. Hope so.”

“During the day, are you hurting a lot?”

After putting himself through the paces, or when Springfield did it, yeah. “Not so bad.”

“I know I must sound like a broken record, but you’ve got to give it time.”

“I guess so.”

“You’ve got to tell me if you need something. You’ve got to talk to me. I won’t know anything unless you tell me.”

Jack reached out then, holding his palm up, asking Ennis for the same in turn, the hand-holding that for so long Ennis had resisted, that had kept him going the day in the hospital that had been fucking hard. Ennis stared at the asking hand, and of a sudden everything they were together was so real to him, like the sharp, sustaining smell of coffee at the beginning of the day: Jack Twist, his man, and Ennis Del Mar, given up everything else in his life to live here in New Mexico with him. His throat tightened, worse than the morning when he had to go to divorce court. He couldn’t lose it, not this new life. 

He forced a smile onto his face, and really, it wasn’t that hard to do when he looked at Jack, sitting here next to him in their house. And then he took Jack’s hand, sliding their palms together.

“How am I gonna get a word in edgewise with you hollering about Corliss Hamilton fit to beat the band? Huh?” Ennis raised his other hand, the one not holding and being held, and flicked his thumb against Jack’s chin. 

“Oh, hell, fucking Corliss. I’ll shut up about him if it would mean you’d tell me how things are going with you.”

“No, it’s got to go both ways. I wouldn’t know who you were if you stopped talking, if you clammed up and kept it all inside.”

Sharply, Jack turned his face away, and then came a weird-sounding chuckle. “Yeah. I guess so.” 

Ennis reached out again and turned Jack back to face him. “So we’re good, right?”

“Sure. Except, one more thing. Really. Whenever you’re ready for that shower, you let me know.” Jack smiled, the faintest hint of his sex-smile, and Ennis knew what he was thinking, especially when Jack leaned forward and kissed him. “You let me be the one you take into the shower with you, not that therapist lady of yours.”

No way. “Nope,” Ennis said. “Not her.” 

*****


	15. Fork in the Road

On Friday, Bill washed his hands at the sink, dried his hands on the towel, and treated Ennis to an understanding, you’re-all-right smile. “See?” he said. “Like I told you, you had nothing to worry about.” 

Ennis wasn’t the type of man to let on how he felt inside; he wasn’t a complain-out-loud-man like Jack. So he wasn’t going to say anything back. Besides, if he let out words from the aching confusion inside, who knew what he’d say? 

Bill knew he’d gone a step too far with that high-up massage. In truth, Ennis had hardly been able to imagine it, being touched like that by a man who wasn’t Jack. How could a hand sliding along his thigh, all the way up to next-to-his-dick, up to the damn bruise, be anything other than a Jack-touch? That was Jack’s territory, but this would be a Bill-touch, and Ennis had no idea if he could stand it. His skin had crawled at the idea even before the man had laid a finger on him.

Like always, Bill had let him decide when they’d come to the fork in the road, crouching next to him, suggesting, and then waiting. Trapped there on the kitchen chair, Ennis had gone cold inside as he weighed hopes and fears but, goddamn, after a good long silence, _Yes_ had come out of his traitor mouth. He hoped his voice hadn’t trembled then, like he was some girl. 

Now, Bill took up his case, and for the first time in their four therapy sessions, Ennis stood and limped over to the door to open it for him. It wasn’t that he was giving an open invitation for Bill to leave the house, but ... he needed the man to leave sooner instead of later. His leg ached pretty much the way it always did after these sessions, but more than that his skin tingled where it’d been touched, as close to a sex-tingle as made no difference, but there was a difference. That was the place he’d been doing his best to keep Jack away from -- even at the same time as he wanted him there -- and now he’d let good-guy-Bill in. Goddamn, it was confusing and hurt his heart.

Bill patted Ennis on the shoulder as he walked out the open door. “You’re the only patient I’ve ever known who’s more tense after a massage than before. Maybe you’ll lighten up next week. See you on Monday.”

Ennis grunted, Bill got in his car and left, Ennis closed the door, and he was glad to be alone. That was that. 

Except, not really. What was he gonna do with himself now? 

The bedroom was the first refuge he sought, though this day -- bright as a penny outside, the sun giving everything it touched crisp-clear edges, though stuck inside he’d had no part of it -- he didn’t lay down on the bed after he dry-swallowed a pain pill. Instead he sat on the edge of the mattress, on Jack’s side, and looked down at the reason for all this. That big bruise. Bill had whistled after he’d pushed up Ennis’s exercise shorts ... and just the memory of that happening twisted his insides. “This is a lot of damage you’ve got here,” Bill had said. His fingers had skimmed over it, the lightest touch that Ennis saw more than felt. “Don’t move. I need to be careful with this and apply exactly the right pressure in the right areas.”

No danger of that. Ennis had been paralyzed where he was, wanting as little of Bill’s fingers on him as possible, and definitely not wanting any mistakes in the direction of his dick. On top of everything else, he sure didn’t want to take the chance of his dick waking up at exactly the worst time and giving Bill the wrong idea. 

“I can just barely see that it’s finally starting to fade. We want to aim for what’s deeper, get the blood flowing where you’re damaged the most. We’ll give it a little help.”

He’d just about bolted with the first touch above his knee, half rising up and then settling back down, but Bill hadn’t let on that he noticed anything unusual. Then it was the lotion and the steady hands, except he was letting this man touch him .... 

He hardly knew why he felt so bad about it. Not like Alma and Cassie hadn’t gone there too. And Bill was just doing his job. But it was just that one step too far.

Now, Ennis’s fingers traced the outlines of the purple-bellied cloud that Delilah had left on his skin. The experts said that he’d got this and most of his leg troubles from the mare falling on him. But to him, this looked like it could have come from a hoof hitting him, the horse in panic lashing out, Delilah’s last statement to the world, her eyes wide in fear.

Not that Ennis felt exactly the same way right now, cause he had a man’s understanding that sometimes things just had to be done, like them or not, and he sure hadn’t liked it today. Even so, he trusted in Bill’s knowledge that the massage would help him get better sooner and get his leg working again all the way. That’s what had forced him to say Yes. Poor Delilah hadn’t understood the storm, or known Ennis was trying to get her and him to safety. 

Ah, hell. Delilah. He could see her now. Not a bad horse, not like Fancy, just too full of herself sometimes. High-spirited, had bad habits when he’d got her, never had been truly gentled. He hadn’t gentled her, had he? 

Not like he’d been gentled. Jack had gentled him. Sort of. 

Where had that thought come from? He couldn’t let himself be less of a man, especially after what he’d just gone through with Bill’s hands on him. Gentled, what the hell? 

He sat there for a span of seconds, his forefinger circling next to the Delilah-mark, wondering about that, about gentling, about training, about teaching a horse to work with a man, about a man learning to work with a man. Had ... Had he gentled Jack? Did he want to think he had? Gentling, being gentled .... Bill -- for all that Ennis was sort of mad at him right now -- had gentle hands when he worked, strong but in a strange way like a woman’s, which made sense cause of what he did, mostly what women did, but as different from the way Jack touched him as night was different from day. And yet, still a lot the same, since they were both men ....

Damn, the pain pill was working on his mind too quick this time, for him to be coming up with stuff like that. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he needed to find something to do, cause he sure didn’t want to spend his time thinking of Bill Springfield and that damn too-high massage.

His eyes fell on the shoe polishing kit Jack’d had out the night before.

A couple minutes later he was set up in the kitchen, newspaper spread out to protect the table, one of his new work boots in his hands as he conditioned the leather. This was something he could do sitting down, and it gave him a chance to appreciate the fine gift Jack had given him. Better to think on Jack and the light in his eyes that day than anything else rolling around in his brain. It was a good thing he hadn’t been wearing them up on the mountain or they would’ve been ruined; he liked to rotate the old and the new boots, day by day, now that he had two pair. Such a fine gift, like nothing he ever would have bought himself. 

When he looked up, he saw the light glowing golden out in the yard, slanting hard with long shadows as the sun came close to setting. Ennis got up and opened the inner door that he’d closed so surely against nice-guy-Bill-only-doing-his-job, so he could see more of the lingering brightness through the screen door, and then he went back to work. It felt good to be doing something that needed doing, to be useful, to concentrate on the flow of the polish, rubbing it in, the movement of his hands around and around, swiping up and down, making sure he didn’t miss a spot. 

The boots didn’t take all that long to finish. After he put them and the kit away, he manhandled another one of the endless casseroles into the oven on low heat. He had no idea when Jack was getting home, even on a Friday, and he’d stopped expecting him at any normal hour. Then he stood in the middle of the kitchen, still with a bad-feeling hitch to his heart. What to do next? He couldn’t stump all over the house with his leg firing worse than usual.

He went into the bathroom and stood over the toilet with his enemy dick in one hand and his other arm extended out against the wall for support, but he looked to his left down at the bathtub with a sort of longing. He’d washed himself with a cloth that morning, but now he had Bill’s fingerprints in the wrong places, and the lotion lingering on his skin too. 

He shook off and zipped himself up, but he didn’t button his pants. Instead he looked again at the tub. Damn, but a soak would go a long way to easing the muscles that Bill had tortured. A soak, a drink, and water to wash away his cares.

Ten minutes later the bottle of Jack Daniels was on the worn brown floormat, a glass with ice and booze sat on the edge of the tub, and he was naked, hovering outside the water still spilling from the spigot, set as hot as it would go. It wasn’t going to be easy, getting in, but he could do it. One quick step in, palm flat on the wall, bend down and grab his leg under the knee, heave, and ....

Water went all over the place, slopping onto the floor, but he managed to flop himself down with nothing more than a yelp and a thud. The hell with it, here he was. Sighing, he leaned back until he was in water up to his armpits. This was perfect.

He gave in to the pleasure of it, the water gently steaming and his sore muscles releasing their tightness into the heat. He rolled his head against the support of the tub behind him, feeling his neck pop with satisfaction. 

But before anything else, he needed to indulge in the whiskey. He sat up and did that, liking the tang of it against his tongue. How long had it been since good sour mash had been his friend? Too long. 

Okay, now it was time to lay back, enjoy, and not think of anything in particular. 

He tried that for a couple minutes, but turned out it wasn’t so easy to empty his brain as it might be. Riding on the range, concentrating on the job at hand and the horse under him, that was a time when it wasn’t so hard to just be. Laid out in the tub, with nothing else to take up his thoughts, was a different story. 

More booze would help. A lot more booze would help. He reached for the glass, like a man with nothing to do but drink, and devoted himself to testing that out. 

A while later, quite a while later, a whole lot later, a thought wormed its way into the front part of his brain, the thinking part, and Ennis bolted up straight. It’d just occurred to him .... 

“Oh, shit,” he said out loud. There was no way he would be able to get himself back out of the tub again. Whether he wanted to let him or not, only Jack could haul him upright. 

Ennis bit his lip, but then he huffed out air almost like a laugh. Huh. Jack might not have managed to talk his way into the shower with Ennis, but he sure was going to see him naked in the tub. Jack did usually manage to get his way in the end, didn’t he? 

Ennis scooted down into the water, forcing his knees up and his chest down until his chin was wet. He looked to where his dick rested like it was innocent, just under the surface. There was a time when he could’ve done what came naturally. Even now, he could reach down and tug, toy with his foreskin, push it back some, wait for that feeling to come .... if it would come. Not likely. 

It’d been a week since the session on the back couch, and Ennis hadn’t woke up to Jack pulling his pud since then. Jack hadn’t made any moves in his direction either. Not one. He must be getting plenty anxious to do the deed by now ... unless he was doing the deed somewhere else. Ennis snorted to think of Jack getting off with his hardass boss or that pipsqueak he worked with.

Still, Jack wasn’t here now. It was just Ennis and his dick. Maybe nothing had happened for days now, but that didn’t mean ... That pain pill he’d just taken shouldn’t make a big difference, should it? And he’d never had trouble getting it up while drinking, had he? Then again, Bill had been shaking-hands-distance from his dick not so long ago ....

He stared down at his dick under the water, sort of wavering in his sight now. Not a best friend anymore, not hardly something he understood. 

An hour and a half later he’d washed all over and his hair too, had fallen asleep and jerked awake twice, and emptied and refilled the bathtub four times when the water had gone cold. As time marched on -- and as the level in the bottle dropped -- he decided that therapists shouldn’t be friendly, no sir. He brooded on that a while, but then it occurred to him with considerable satisfaction that another weekend was before him. Saturday and Sunday would be filled with Jack, and Ennis wasn’t sad to drink to that. No empty hours with nothing to do. All his ice had melted, but it made no difference. He felt no pain with Mr. Daniels and a little water to keep him company. 

The tiny window showed that dark had fallen long ago when the sounds of the Ford coming down the drive reached him. He sat up, resting his arms on either side of the tub. His skin chilled as water fell off him. 

“Now look it here,” he said straight down to his dick, cause of a sudden it seemed real important. “Come on back, so’s we can get into it with Jack again. He ain’t gonna wait forever, you know.” 

It could be there was a lot of drink in these words. Well, he knew there was, cause it wasn’t normal for him to talk to the life between his legs. Of course, he’d never been this worried about it before.

The outside door slammed and after a couple seconds came Jack’s voice. “Ennis?”

“You pay attention,” Ennis told his dick. “That man’s the best in this whole state. Maybe even more.”

“Hey, where are you?” Jack called, and even through the bathroom door, Ennis could tell he was stumped. “We got company or are you talking to burglars?”

“Nobody here but us chickens,” Ennis hollered. 

Jack pushed open the door a bit, peeked in, and then shoved it wide. “What the heck?” he said with a grin as he looked across to the far side of the room where the tub was. A few big steps let him send his gaze all over Ennis’s bare skin, from his head to his toes and then back to his middle. He got stuck there, making Ennis duck his head. 

“Can’t a man take a bath now and then?” Ennis sloshed back into the water, where it was a lot warmer, and giving Jack as much of an eyeful as he wanted. And if he wanted to check out the Delilah-gift, then so be it.

Jack’s eyes didn’t stray from front and center. “Well, yeah, and it’s real nice that you got to get naked to do it. You’re the best thing I’ve seen all day.” Finally he looked somewhere else. “Hey, is that a bottle over there?”

Like a hawk headed down for a kill, Jack stepped with purpose onto the soaking wet floormat to get to the Jack Daniels. He picked it up and lifted it to his mouth.

“Sure, Jack,” Ennis said with a smirk. “I don’t mind sharing.”

Jack swallowed and wiped his lips. “Damn, I needed that.” Down he went onto the toilet, flipping the lid over first. He kept the bottle in his hand though. 

“Another bad day?”

“You said it.”

“What happened?”

“Oh ....” Jack waved both hands in the air and seemed surprised that the booze was still with him. He took another slug. 

“Hey,” Ennis protested. “Give it over here. I’ll fill up and let you drink from the big boy.” He half-filled his glass, not spilling any, and gave the bottle back. “So, what were you saying? Bad day?” He turned the water on for a couple seconds to bring the liquor in his glass up to the rim.

Jack sat back on the toilet with his legs slack and open, one hand resting on his thigh and his mouth twisting into a grimace. He clutched the booze like he wouldn’t let go of it soon. “I guess not any worse than other days. Just so much crap. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. Anyway, Corliss got on Marge’s case again. Damn, but I hate to see him go after her.” 

“Not good to be mean to a woman,” Ennis said like a wise man.

“Yeah, like he’s Mister Perfect,” Jack brooded. 

“Ain’t nobody that. Hey, what time is it?”

Jack didn’t make an attempt to lift his wrist and look at his watch. He heaved a sigh and said, “Past seven.”

Even later than he’d thought. “Damn, Jack, that man’s a slave driver.”

“That’s no lie. And I’ve got to go to work tomorrow too, on a Saturday! He’s got me doing everything but typing, and for all I know, that’ll be next. It’s the EPA reports he wants me to get done this time, you know, the Clean Water Act stuff.”

Ennis wrinkled his brow. “But you don’t -- ”

“What I don’t have is any choice. He’s going to meet me there at eight and teach it to me. I can’t even sleep in a little.” The glance that Jack flicked Ennis’s way held a world of sorry. “Wish I didn’t have to go in.”

“Fuck,” Ennis said, and he drained half of what was in his glass in one go. 

“No kidding. Hey, seems you started early with the whiskey. Something happen to you today?”

There was nothing in him that wanted to confess to Jack about the near-dick-massage. What Jack didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him or Ennis either. “Nah. Okay, so what else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“Threes.”

“What?” 

He never did have the easiest time explaining what he meant when he’d been drinking for a while. “Things come in threes,” he got out as patiently as he could. “Marge crying, working tomorrow, and ... what else?”

“Well, aren’t you the mind reader.” Jack drank again, and Ennis watched the line of his throat as he swallowed. He smacked his lips when he was finished and said, “There isn’t any number three unless a piano drops down from the sky.”

Ennis frowned at that and resisted looking straight up. That was a dumb thing to say, and he wasn’t gonna fall for it. “Mr. JD says different.” He pointed at the bottle. “No piano needed. What’s wrong?”

“Shit,” Jack said, and he matched Ennis’s frown with one of his own as his mouth opened and closed. It seemed to Ennis that his easy-talking fella wanted to say something, but it was stuck somewhere. It was a world of difference from the night before, when Jack hadn’t shut up with his complaining. 

“So?”

Jack ran a hand over his dark hair so it wasn’t laying in such work-like lines anymore. “I just don’t .... I guess there won’t be any harm if ....”

“If what?”

“Remember that cattle rig driver I told you about? Hugo?”

Ennis squinted down at this fingers -- long since wrinkled from the water -- and tried to remember. “Don’t think so.” He wished he did, cause it seemed important to Jack.

“Didn’t I.... Well, maybe I didn’t. Anyway, he caught me this noon as I was walking from the coffeeshop.”

“In Cimarron?”

Jack reached down from where he was sitting and sloshed the water all around Ennis’s feet, and then he grabbed his toes and shook them. “No, I went to Denver for lunch, shithead.” 

Ennis jerked back from being manhandled. “Hey! I was just asking.”

“He came up behind me on that boardwalk they got there and started talking about how the cops had stopped him again while he was carrying cattle from the lot.”

“Again? Why’d they do it the first time?”

Jack shook his head, said, “No good reason, not even a ticket,” and then stood up and shrugged out of his good black jacket. He tossed it across the room so it thumped against the open door. It stayed there for a couple seconds, upright all by itself, as if it was a person with bones and everything. But then it collapsed into a heap. Jack looked down at it with his hands on his hips. “Guess we’re not the only ones getting drunk tonight.”

“Damn right,” Ennis said, and he toasted Jack with his glass. “You, me, and your coat. So how come this Hugo guy is your number three for the day?”

Jack scratched the back of his neck and settled back down on the toilet lid. “I don’t know.” He put the bottle to good use again, not kidding around with what he swallowed, and Ennis figured his hard-working man was trying to catch up to where he was already.

“That ain’t much of a story. What more did he say?”

“He asked me what he should do, and I said he shouldn’t run any red lights. Don’t break the law. He didn’t think too much of that advice.” 

“Sometimes those cops’ll lay in wait for you, just itching to give out a ticket, no matter what.” 

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, and now his head was down and the bottle was between his legs. “He wanted me to tell Corliss that he needed a raise.”

“You’re kidding. Why’d he -- ”

“I told him to go do his own dirty work, I wasn’t ....” Up the liquor went, and then down Jack’s throat. He choked a little before he said, “Anyway. That’s it.” 

Ennis wondered why this Hugo fellow was asking the feedlot for a raise, when as far as he knew those long-haul truckers were employed by the trucking line. Weren’t they? Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight, cause there wasn’t much denying that he’d been enjoying the booze. 

He looked over at Jack and almost said something about it, but the words died a quick death. Jack’s eyes had changed, got bigger or softer or just more Jack-like, and there weren’t many things in this world that got his attention faster than the way Jack was regarding him right then.

“Damn,” Jack said, breathy, sounding like he was out of air, “but I am glad to be home. Come here, I need a kiss.”

The hell with all the shit weighing him down. If Ennis could have, he would’ve got up, sloshing water all over as he reached for his man. He would’ve hauled Jack up from where he was sitting and given him a kiss he wouldn’t soon forget. And then they would’ve spent a solid hour horizontal on top of the sheets, because damn but it had been a long time, and he needed to kiss his Jack all over. His lips got hungry as he thought about the private parts that he’d explore, and then going down on Jack’s dick with an open mouth. Fuck, but he missed Jack’s dick.

He’d have to miss it longer, cause Ennis couldn’t even get up out of the tub to start that dream. It was Jack who moved, going down on his knees next to the tub and taking Ennis’s face between his hands. He didn’t go any further, just stayed where he was, looking deep for something, though Ennis didn’t know what. 

“You remember when we used to drink around the fire?” Jack asked.

Drink, and laugh, and talk, and sometimes other things. None of it as good as even the simplest thing they did together in bed since they’d really got together, but even so, good memories. 

“Yeah, I remember,” he breathed. He might not exactly feel anything below the belt right now, but the second he’d heard that man’s voice calling for him, it was like the air in the room got better. Sweet. Wasn’t that one of the best things in life, to be called for? 

“You and me around the fire. That was .... That was so ....” Jack talking so slow wasn’t usual. It was like he was drugged up or something. Or the whiskey was in his blood now. His big hands against Ennis’s cheeks moved, the thumbs going up and down against his cheekbones. Since he couldn’t get up, Ennis wanted to pull Jack into the water with him, to be pressed down into it by the weight of his man’s wanting him. “I used to spend my nights in Childress thinking of us by the fire. Not even fucking, just the two of us talking and drinking.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s what we’re doing right now, talking and drinking. Come here.”

The kiss promised to be something good cause it started out the right way: Jack tightening the grip he had on Ennis’s face and coming in close, and Ennis reaching behind to grab Jack’s neck to keep him where he needed to be. They didn’t waste time with any closed lips bullshit but started right away with tongues and the taste of the whiskey they passed back and forth. Ennis shut his eyes to block out the rest of the world, all his doubts and the voices inside and Bill Springfield and the water on the floor. Damn, but his man’s lips could keep him warm all winter long, and his tongue -- 

The phone rang. 

On the third ring Jack went to pull away, and though Ennis mumbled, “Forget it,” Jack didn’t listen to him. He heaved himself to his feet, a little unsteady, and wiped his mouth. 

“Damn it!” Jack hollered as he walked out the bathroom doorway. “We’ve got to get an answering machine on the private line, and I don’t give a shit whose voice is on it. You, me, or the president of the United States!” He turned toward the phone and disappeared from Ennis’s view. 

“Fuck,” Ennis said as he leaned back in the tub again, with water up to his nipples. He touched his lips with the tips of his fingers and frowned.

“Hello!” Ennis heard Jack say, jumping all over whoever was calling with just that one word. “Oh. Yeah. Hi, Bobby.” 

Bobby? Maybe trying to mend that bridge between him and his dad some more? 

“I’m okay,” Ennis heard Jack say, way more reasonable than when he’d picked up the phone. “How’re you doing?”

Not too fatherly, but he didn’t know that he’d be any better if one of his girls hadn’t wanted to hug him when she left.... Well, no, he wouldn’t ever give them a cold shoulder, but ....

“Your birthday? Yeah, I know it’s on a Saturday this year, but -- ”

“That’s almost a month away. Why are we talking about -- Oh.”

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps coming closer, so Ennis looked at where Jack appeared in the open doorway with the cord stretched, the receiver stuck to his ear, and a funny expression on his face. He pointed to the phone with one finger, as if Ennis needed to be told to listen. 

“I’m not sure I can get off work then.” Ennis could see the effort he made as he said, “How about if you come here?” His eyebrows went up, and he looked straight at Ennis. 

Ennis nodded as fast as he could, real obvious so Jack couldn’t miss it. There was no way he was gonna stand in the way of Jack finding a way to get along with his son. For good measure he added, “That’s fine with me.”

But the expression of hope on Jack’s face was fading. “I get it,” he said into the phone. “No, I don’t mean ....”

He listened for a while, and even Ennis could hear Bobby talking loud and fast. It didn’t much sound like an apology to him. 

“Listen, Bobby, I understand. If you want to stay with your friends in Childress, I’ll ... I’ll ....” Ennis could see Jack’s mouth get tight, like he was forcing the words out. “I’ll do my best to come there. You hear? There’s no need to think -- I know you’re turning eighteen. I know it’s an important -- Okay, okay, I really will. I suppose I can leave Friday night and drive until I get there. You sure you won’t just run around with your friends all day Saturday? Cause if I come, I’m not -- ”

Jack turned his back to Ennis’s sight then, though he didn’t think it was done deliberate. Jack was fiddling with the cord the way Ennis always did, and his shoulders were hunched over too. Huh. Bet Bill would yell at him for that if he saw. Bill was always after him to stand up straight.

“I want a bunch of your day on Saturday, you hear?”

“Yeah, I’ll stay until Sunday, but I’ll need to leave in the afternoon.”

“I promise I’ll be there unless I lose my job if I go. Okay? That satisfy you?” 

There was some more back and forth, but in a couple minutes Jack disappeared, and Ennis heard the phone being put down in its cradle. 

“Can you believe that?” came Jack’s voice from the kitchen. 

“Sure,” he called. “The boy wants you in his life, the way it oughta be.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want me in his life, maybe he just -- ” Whatever Jack was saying got lost under the sounds of the oven being opened and a dish sliding out. 

“What’s that you said?” Ennis half-hollered.

“I said, maybe he doesn’t really want me in his life, maybe he just wants a big birthday present. He’s turning eighteen, you know.”

“I know. But he could just ask you to send something in the mail. The boy’s trying to make things good between you two, wanting you -- ” 

There went more clatter-banging. Ennis figured Jack was hungry, cause dishes were being pulled from the cabinet and silverware from out of the drawer.

“He wants you there on his big day, Jack,” he finished. 

“I hope so,” Jack said. “You don’t mind if I go? I figure you’ll be up on your feet by then. It’s almost a month off, the week before Thanksgiving.” 

Ennis looked down at his damned thigh. Bill had said the bruise was showing signs of fading, but you couldn’t tell it by him. On his feet by then? “Yeah, sure, that’s fine. Hey, you getting yourself some food?”

“Hold on, I’m almost ready.”

“I don’t need anything but more ice for my -- ”

In Jack came to the bathroom, carrying a plate filled with pot roast and potatoes in one hand and an ice-filled glass in the other. 

“What are you doing, you asshole?” Ennis asked, but he was smiling as he said it.

“Bringing you dinner.”

“In the bathtub?”

“You looked so comfortable, I didn’t want you to get up. Here.” Jack shoved the plate and ice toward him. 

Ennis managed to grab it all and balance the dinner on his knees. “Whoever heard of eating in the -- ”

“We can eat wherever we damn well want to eat,” Jack told him as he went back to get his own food and another glass. He settled on the toilet again and right away shoved a forkful of beef in his mouth. “This is our house, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but -- ”

“And I won’t be announcing what we’re doing on the radio. But who gives a damn if I do?”

“Your boss who wants you on Saturday, that’s who.”

Jack gave him a ferocious scowl. “Fuck Corliss Hamilton,” Jack said with a lot of heat.

“I’ll drink to that.” Ennis picked up his old glass and held it out to clink with Jack’s. “Though I was thinking today I didn’t know that you really would fuck him.”

Jack choked on the booze he’d just swallowed. “Ennis! Hell! That’s the most disgusting thought I’ve had in my head for a year.”

“Good,” Ennis said with deep satisfaction. “You know, you look really dumb sitting there on the pot.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, just for that ....”

Jack set aside his food and drink, went into the kitchen to get a chair that he settled right next to the tub, and shucked himself of his shoes, socks, and pants.

“There ain’t room in here for both of us,” Ennis warned. 

“I’d squash you like a bug, as thin as you’ve gotten. But I thought I’d just soak my feet.” 

There’d been times in Ennis’s life when he’d been invaded by good feelings, and almost all of those times involved the crazy man who’d dragged him out of Wyoming cause there wasn’t any living without him. But Ennis didn’t think any of those times brought up the feelings the same as those he had right then. Him slouched back in water that had to be good for his leg, not-bad food balanced mostly on his chest, booze ready at hand, and Jack, laughing at them both as he slithered the soles of his feet across Ennis’s stomach, over and over again. 

“You are such a dumbass,” Ennis said, watching long toes flex and curl on him. “Is Bobby the teenager or are you?”

But then he looked up and smiled. Jack leaned way, way, way over, picked up his glass from the floor, and held it out for a toast. “Here’s to me,” he said.

Ennis couldn’t help it, he chuckled out loud and clinked their glasses together. “Here’s to you,” he agreed. “Asshole.”

“Give me a chance at your asshole,” Jack leered. “I’m on the job.”

Ennis blinked a couple times, testing how he felt about that. It ... didn’t sound all that bad. 

*****

It had to be a full hour later, didn’t it? Ennis tried to bring the watch that Jack had left on the floor into focus, but he couldn’t do it. He’d put more hot water in the tub, almost to the top, and they’d eaten all the food, with Jack going back for another plate and regular refills of ice. Ennis had managed not to tell anything about the real-nice-therapist-whose-fingers-came-too-close, though a couple times he’d almost opened his mouth about it. Jack hadn’t said much more about his day at work either, as if telling him about that truck driver had been more than enough. Instead, they sure had laughed a lot, but Ennis wouldn’t have been able to say about what.

It struck him in the middle of a toast Jack was making to whoever had put the booze in their particular bottle how different Jack was looking. Smiling, relaxed, yeah, but he’d been that way a time or two since the hospital. Ennis looked closer. Those lines were gone from Jack’s forehead, that’s what it was. Huh. He’d hardly been aware. Jack had been walking around like a real serious-man lately, but now he seemed light and free. Well, good for him. Good for the booze, the likely cause, and maybe it was time they had more of it. 

He picked up the bottle and tried to hold it up to the light, but Jack’s head got in the way between him and the bulb up on the ceiling. 

“Mo ... move over,” Ennis told him. 

“What?”

“Move over so’s I can see .... Oh. Not much left here.” 

“I’ll take care of that,” Jack said. He made a half-hearted swipe for the bottle that didn’t come close.

“I ain’t giving it all to you.”

“Not ... hic ... not what I said.” 

“No? Sure is.”

“Wasn’t. I said ....” Jack gestured between the two of them, a big sweep of his hand that almost unbalanced him. The heels of his feet dug into Ennis’s stomach as he fought to keep himself upright. 

“Ouch! Look at what you’re -- ”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“You’re gonna make me drop this, and then where’ll we be?”

“Without anything more to drink, that’s where,” Jack said. “Like I was saying, let’s finish it up, half for you, half for me.”

“If that’s what you meant, you should’ve said it.”

Jack gave him a big smile, and didn’t he look fine, sitting there in his fine cotton work shirt and white boxers. “I did say it. Now, come on, pour it out.”

So Ennis sat up in the water, forcing Jack’s feet off him and onto the edge of the tub instead, and split the difference between the two of them. 

“My back’s killing me,” he said suddenly, setting the glass down before tasting another drop, because it was true.

“Well, no wonder, friend. You’ve been sitting down there for ....” Jack pursed his lips so much he looked like a chimpanzee. Ennis squinted at him. “How long you been in there?” Jack asked.

“If you’d got home sooner, then -- ”

Jack sat up straight, or at least as much as he could. Ennis stopped talking mid-sentence because Jack’s legs bowed out and the fly in his shorts gaped open. Ennis gobbled up the view of what it showed inside. Looked to him like Jack was half-hard, and wasn’t the glimpse of balls he got a sight for sore eyes. Jack said, “I been home for ... for a long time.”

Ennis shifted his gaze back to Jack’s face, where he wasn’t so monkey-like anymore. He looked like plain old Jack, except Jack hadn’t never been plain, not from the first day he’d set eyes on him, cause even as dumb as Ennis knew he’d been that day in front of Aguirre’s trailer, he’d realized Jack was as handsome a man as ever he’d seen, except of course he didn’t let himself think so at the time, fighting the good fight against being queer that he’d lost good and certain, and the proof was that the sight of Jack’s dick peeking through his shorts had sure interested him.

Jack let out a bark of laughter and suddenly pushed with his feet so the chair was balancing on its back two legs.

“What the hell’s so funny?” Ennis wanted to know.

“I don’t know. You. Me. The whole fucking world. You’re home, goddamnit.” 

Ennis closed one eye, the better to see Jack against the sudden glare that’d come over him. Everything sure was bright of a sudden. “I might be home, but you ain’t got me out of the bathtub yet, have you?”

“Well, if that’s what you’re waiting for ....” Jack let the chair down with a thump, stood up, and started unbuttoning his shirt. 

Ennis licked his lips, remembering a hundred times when Jack had done the same and then they’d had sex. “What you doing?” he asked hopefully. There was a part of his brain that remembered he was afraid of even touching his dick now, but that part wasn’t yelling loud enough to catch his attention. 

“I’m not getting my clothes all wet,” Jack said simply. He dropped the shirt on top of one of their empty dinner plates. 

“You’re getting yourself all naked,” Ennis observed with deep approval, because after the shirt, Jack skimmed out of his boxers. From where Ennis sat, the view was fine.

“Yep. Here now, drink up before we leave this bar.” Jack picked up both their glasses and handed Ennis’s over. “Bottoms up.” 

Ennis closed his eyes as he drank, and then he nearly bit his tongue in two when he felt an unmistakable warmth on his dick. 

“What the hell?” he sputtered as his eyes popped open. There was Jack, leaned over the edge of the tub, his ass up in the air and his head down in the water. His mouth slipped over the tip of Ennis’s dick, and his tongue gave it a swipe. 

Ennis didn’t know whether to grab Jack’s head and keep him there, because he liked this -- hell, maybe his dick would remember how to do this -- or smack him good because ... because ... well, there wasn’t any reason for that. But maybe Jack would drown ....

Jack took the decision out of his hands. He lifted up from where he’d been deep-sea diving on Ennis’s good parts and smacked his lips. “Damn tasty, Del Mar. Come on, let’s get you out of here and put you in bed where you belong.”

“Fine by me,” he managed to say. Maybe ... maybe tonight would be the night when .... But how had Jack not noticed there wasn’t anything going on down there? Had the water in his mouth confused him? Hell, he didn’t know.

Ennis helped as much as he could, pushing off on his okay leg and bracing himself on stiffened arms, but Jack really did most of the work. He came up in a big heave, water streaming off him, and Jack pretty much yanked him full-bodied over the side of the tub. Ennis let out a “Hey!” and plastered himself against six feet of naked skin for balance. 

Jack laughed like he was that teenager Ennis had accused him of being, like he couldn’t help himself, like he was drunk and horny and the whole world was wide and not narrow. “Well, hello there, big fella,” Jack said with a grin that seemed to demand Ennis smile back in return. He did; it wasn’t tough to do. Life with Jack: maybe it could be easy again, like letting the sun fall on his face. 

Jack was hard against his leg, that was for certain. His arms were wrapped around Ennis’s back, keeping them securely together. “We seem to keep bouncing into each other like this,” he said, and then he swooped forward and gave Ennis his mouth. Just before their lips met, his eyes were one big explosion of joy. 

Ennis felt like he got caught in that explosion, a familiar feeling from long ago, cause hadn’t Jack lit his fuse from the beginning? Everything with Jack back then had been special, and it wasn’t any different now. Ennis was lit up everywhere. His neck burned, his backside where Jack had slid his open hands woke up, every place touched, and his dick -- that was a familiar sensation, wasn’t it? A little tingle. Not getting hard yet, but some hint that maybe he could. Maybe. Maybe there was a God. 

“I want to fuck you,” Jack whispered into his ear as they swayed against each other, water dripping down from his wet hair. “Haven’t been able to think of nothing else the past week.”

Ennis gulped against his suddenly dry mouth. “What ... what you waiting for?”

It didn’t take but seconds for them to stagger through the kitchen, the front living room, and around into the bedroom. Ennis mostly fell onto the bed, cause Jack had hauled him like a piece of lumber he was in a hurry to deliver. He laid himself out flat on his back in the middle of the mattress and waited for his crazy man to crawl over him. Jack’s dick, he noticed, had survived the trip with no problems, still hard, no worse for the booze he’d been steadily pouring down his throat. He did like that dick. If he concentrated on Jack and not his own parts, then he’d be okay, right? Damn, but he wished .... _Jack, come on. Touch me. Or better yet, what you were doing in the tub, diving for gold? Do it again. Your mouth would feel so fine right now, I remember how it feels, and I can’t do this on my own._

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said as he stood with his legs braced and his eyes sparkling. His grin surely could of won some sort of contest as he sent his sight all over where Ennis was spread out for him. Then he raised his face to the ceiling and pounded with one hand on his chest. “Oh, yeah!” he said a hell of a lot louder. 

“You gonna stand there hollering or you gonna do me right?”

Jack said, “Need the lube,” as he rooted around in the nightstand drawer. 

And then he said, “Need the lube on me.” Ennis heard the slickness being applied and didn’t mind watching it one bit. 

A second later Jack said, “Need it inside you.” Jack wasted no time rolling Ennis over onto his side, laying himself behind him, and sticking a finger up his ass. In, a swipe around, and then out and gone, even before Ennis could say it was all too fast and not nearly enough slick.

With Ennis’s brain part-pickled and him not thinking as clearly as maybe he should have been, Jack said, “Need me in you, so here I come.” There wasn’t anything for it, so Ennis held his breath, tried to remember what to do when it wasn’t automatic anymore, and bit his lip as Jack gripped his hip and pushed his way in.

“Oh, Christ!” Jack said, and then he groaned, a sound that shuddered all through Ennis, because he knew the feeling that went with that groan and wanted it for his own. 

But he had an entirely different feeling, and not much of it was good. “Damnit!” Ennis protested, cause it’d all happened before he could blink and his ass sure as hell wasn’t ready. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind. “Jack!”

Jack pushed in more until it felt like half of Kansas was up inside him and then took two thrusts.

“Damn, but you’re tighter than a glove,” came breathlessly from behind him. 

Ennis knew he was tight, because he could feel every pounding inch being crammed into a space too small. He didn’t need Jack telling him.

“Oh, shit, it’s too soon!” Jack wailed. “Can’t wait. I’m -- ”

Ennis lay there, bracing himself against the final thrusts of Jack’s coming. When it was over, when Ennis’s ass was damp inside, Jack whimpered and rested his forehead against Ennis’s back. 

“Fuck!” he gasped. Then he pressed a sloppy kiss on Ennis’s shoulder, pulled his dick out into the open air, and flopped over onto his back. 

It took a little while for Ennis to roll over too. He kept expecting to feel a hand come around him again, fingers going for his dick, maybe kisses down his back or all over his ass, a pinch to his nipples, something like that. Anything. But nothing came, and so he shifted over to see ... that Jack was fast asleep.

There wasn’t any mistaking it; the first snore told the tale. 

Through the gloom of the shadowed room, he looked down at himself. His dick was set for bedtime now. Just like Jack, it was snoozing, and he wasn’t sure at all that it’d ever been awake. 

His heart sank, even lower than when he’d been in the hospital. 

Next to him, Jack snorted and lifted a hand to rub his eyes. A minute passed while Ennis held his breath, not wanting to call attention to himself, feeling like some woman not interested in sex must feel, who just wanted her husband to go back to sleep. 

But he wasn’t some woman, and he was interested in sex, and Jack never had been one to do what a person wanted him to do. 

“Sorry,” Jack said as he rolled closer and reached out. His palm settled just above Ennis’s belly button. “Guess I dozed off there for a second. Time for you to get yours.” 

Ennis grabbed Jack’s wrist before he could slide any farther than the edge of his short and curlies. “Not this time.” 

Just like he had when Ennis had stopped him before, Jack sounded disappointed. “No? It’s not fair if I get off but you don’t.”

“It’s okay.” With any luck Jack wouldn’t notice the way he said that, because to Ennis it seemed his throat was clogged with every bad feeling that had made its home in him.

“You sure?” Jack peered at him like he was almost blind, coming in real close. “I’m awake, I can do you. Come on, Ennis, let me -- ”

This time Jack got all the way to resting his hand over Ennis’s shamefully limp dick and even curling his fingers around it. 

Damn it! He didn’t want .... But he did want .... But Jack couldn’t know that he couldn’t get it up right now.

“There you go,” Jack crooned, and he tried to give it a pull. 

“Leave me be!” Ennis half-punched him away with a resounding smack in the center of Jack’s chest that had him rubbing it and looking like a little lost boy.

“Well, damn, if that’s how you feel about it.”

“Yeah, it is.” Though it really wasn’t, and inside Ennis was as lost as Jack looked. _Nothing’s working the right way. Jack? How am I gonna get through this?_ “Just ... go to sleep.” 

After one puppy-dog, drunk-off-his-ass look, Jack probably set a record for falling back into dreamland, cause the liquor-fueled snores started right after he closed his eyes. 

The seconds ticked away and the minutes kept going as Ennis lay in their house that was nestled in the arms of the Moreno Valley. All around him, Ennis knew, was life, from the squirrels almost ready for the winter, to the raccoons headed for the stream, to the deer flitting like shadows through the woods. Even the vultures roosting in their tree were alive. He didn’t take comfort from any of it. 

*****

_Finally, he’d made it back to the Buckminster Ranch. Ennis turned on his heel and looked all around with satisfaction he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again. The three-year-olds munching on good green grass. This back pasture, the largest on the spread, rising up into the no-nonsense rocks of the Sangre de Cristos. Down far below, the house where the family lived. Him, in the middle, living between Earth and sky._

_Ennis heaved in breath, testing to see how far down into his lungs he could draw outdoor air. It was so good to be back._

_The pinto galloped by._

_“Hey there!” he yelled, holding onto his hat as if the breeze from its passing would take the hat with it. “Come back here!”_

_The pinto stopped and tossed its head. It looked healthy as Samson, or Delilah before she’d died, nothing like the sadsack horse he’d been holding in his mind, but even so, he couldn’t let the horse run wild. All the three year olds had disappeared, back in the barn because of that big storm coming._

_“Come on, Ennis!” Jack grabbed his elbow and tugged. “I’ll help you get him before the bad weather hits.”_

_Ennis dropped his hand from his head and stood still as a statue, thinking that Jack had other things to do and he didn’t know yet how Ennis felt so strong on the two-colored horse, two-in-one. So he said, “No, Jack. You go on down the mountain and help Betty Jo and Rocky. I can get him on my own.”_

_“Not without me, Ennis.”_

_“Go away.”_

_“Can’t I do anything to help?”_

_“Go away.”_

_Jack turned monkey-face again, put his knuckles down on the ground, and moved away like the chimpanzees did. Ennis didn’t like seeing him like that, made less than a man, so he looked away. The pinto was a lot farther away now, upslope, his head down, grazing._

_Ennis put his own head down and started walking toward the horse. Eventually his head got so low he tasted grass, chewed, swallowed, and didn’t find it all that bad. There were so many things he needed, maybe grass was one of them, so he kept grazing, but always moving toward the pinto._

_Sweat prickled on his flanks, and he reached to wipe it off his face and shoulders. Up, up, now he was standing on two feet again. Mid-summer with the sun glaring in his eyes. He squinted against the light, good to see by, but not so good to walk toward, not with his sensitive eyes._

_“If you don’t get the pinto right now,” Bill said, “your daddy will take him away for sure. Do you want me to walk with you to halter him?”_

_Ennis looked at Bill with fondness rising in his chest. It was just like the man, pushing even worse than Jack did, but always asking the question first._

_“I suppose you have a halter?”_

_Bill lifted his hand to show, and for sure there it was. It was amazing the things that man had that were useful. “This will gentle him,” Bill said._

_“Okay then,” Ennis said. “Let’s go.”_

_They set out up the slope. Once Ennis’s leg buckled, but Bill was right there with a hand on his arm to keep him upright. The horse whinnied as if he was so close Ennis could touch him, but when he looked, the pinto was like a speck in his eyes, so far away._

_Ennis stopped and wiped the sweat off his brow with his shirt sleeve. “Storm’s gonna hit before we get to him.”_

_“Should we give up?” Bill wanted to know._

_“Jack wouldn’t like it,” Ennis blurted out, panicking with the thought of losing the horse. Really losing him? Never having him in the barn again? Never get the chance to ride him with Jack looking on, smiling? Impossible! He looked around wildly. “I’ve got to find Samson! He’ll know what to do!”_

_The hot wind whipped at him, dust coating his skin in the pattern of the pinto, brown and white._

_“We don’t need Samson,” Bill yelled at him, but the noise from the storm snatched his words away. Ennis could hardly hear. “We’re all we’ve got, just you and me.”_

_Away in the distance, Ennis caught a glimpse of the pinto running, wild and free. Next to the horse, for just a moment, he thought he saw Jack’s deer, keeping pace, but maybe not._

_“He’s gone,” Ennis whispered._

_Bill’s arm came over his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”_

_Tears prickled his eyes, not manly, but he couldn’t help it. “Me too.”_

_“Maybe you’ll find him later.”_

_He doubted it. “Maybe.”_

_“Or maybe not. I imagine you’ll feel better if we get that dust off you. Will you come with me to get clean?”_

_Nothing would make him feel better, but Ennis nodded, not caring, turning around and letting Bill lead him away._

_The stream was from a picture book. Bill flipped the page and there they were next to it, with the air warm and the sky cloud-free, the water by their feet so clear he could see the minnows swimming slowly by._

_Bill started to get undressed._

_Ennis watched._

_The man pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop onto the moss. Ennis’s eyes followed it down, saw it there in a heap, but then he couldn’t resist looking up, following the line of Bill’s pants up to where now he was bare-chested._

_His chest was hairless, reminding Ennis of somebody .... Bill looked like one of the men from Jack’s porn magazine that Ennis liked more than the others. His chest gleamed in the sun from the massage oil that had been rubbed all over it. His nipples stood out hard and proud, and when Bill flicked them with his own fingers, both hands at the same time, so serious, Ennis licked his lips. Far away, soft music played like from the movies, just a few seconds of it before it died down. Something deep in Ennis’s belly stirred, awakening._

_Bill’s hands went to his belt, but Bill was looking at him as he started to unbuckle. At him, as if he was the center and not those hands on that belt and the minutes to come. If he turned away, would Bill disappear? He didn’t turn away because he didn’t want to. He wanted to see._

_Somehow, heart in his mouth, Ennis watched the belt coming undone and watched Bill watching him all at the same time. The man never turned away, kept Ennis there with his eyes, roped and tied with just his eyes. Was that a bulge under the belt, under the man’s black pants?_

_How could he ask that question? Because he wanted to know. He took a deep breath, and then another because he needed it, quicker, and then another one quicker than the one before._

_The stream next to them stopped running; it got still as a lake. Nothing moved around them, nothing made sounds, including him, breath holding now, waiting .... The whole earth got quiet as Bill unzipped his pants and, looking with his I’m-here-for-you eyes, lowered them and stepped out of them. The hairs on Ennis’s arms stood up._

_Yes, that was a bulge showing through the man’s white briefs. The outline of his dick showed like he was wearing nothing at all._

_“Don’t you think it’s your turn, Mr. Del Mar?”_

_Ennis closed his eyes, but his hands weren’t under his control as he worked at the buttons of his shirt. One, two, three, all the way down until his shirt hung open on his shoulders. He stopped there and tried to find an answer in this dark questioning, but someone came behind him and touched his shoulders. Someone slowly pulled the shirt off his arms. The air touched his bare stomach and he shivered, but he wasn’t cold. What was happening? What was happening?_

_He couldn’t move, but then he tried harder and he could, but only slow as a snail, inch by inch, closer and closer to his belt, to the buckle, to the opening of all openings, and then finally cool metal on his fingers and the slide of leather. A second later, he was naked all the way, every stitch gone. His dick hung heavy between his legs, seemed like it weighed twenty pounds hanging there, but it didn’t._

_“Please,” came Bill’s voice._

_Ennis opened his eyes and saw naked-Bill holding out his hand. His dick nestled in jet black hair, ordinary, uncut like him, maybe-half-hard, and it was impossible for Ennis to look anywhere else. A man’s dick .... He did so like dick. His pulse throbbed in his throat._

_Ennis took Bill’s hand, and together they stepped down into the stream._

_The warm water slithered over his skin as if Bill was touching him all over with his fingertips, in that way he had, down Ennis’s spine and into his ass crack and then over to cup his balls. He cried out, but Bill’s hand was still in his, and Bill was floating in the water, face up just like he was, looked down on by the sky._

_The water stirred as some unseen hand moved it, tiny drop by tiny drop against his skin, changing him. It took a long time as they floated there, all alone in the world, but bit by bit, eventually the water erased the grit from his skin, washing away the pattern of the pinto, brown and white. Ennis whimpered at its loss. He was just Ennis now, with naked human skin._

_Bill squeezed his hand down to the bone. Was pain always part of therapy?_

_The stream wasn’t a stream but a river, and they were far from the shore now. He was linked to Bill, his only life preserver to keep him from drowning, both of them rushing, rushing feet first toward something but he didn’t know what. He wanted to know where they were going, and he wanted his body to work again, what he’d had with Jack, his body arcing up when he came, the overwhelming moment at the top. It was worth almost anything to get there again, though he struggled to remember what it felt like._

_This, like this. One moment as the sky opened to show a glimpse of what was beyond, the whole world perfect, the water perfect and so deadly, and he wanted to cry with the gladness and wanted to give up to the river’s strength, to die right then cause nothing would ever feel like what could be._

_But the waterfall was right there at his toes, tugging to pull him down, roaring in his ears. He struggled upright. “Got to get away!” he gasped._

_He made it to the shore, but Bill and some-other-Ennis went down with the curtain of water that was really just a shower, their shower, Jack and Ennis’s shower in their bathroom in their house. Ennis stepped forward and brushed the curtain away._

_Bill stood pressed behind other-Ennis, his hands wrapped around other-Ennis’s waist, his lips kissing other-Ennis’s neck. Other-Ennis’s dick was sticking out hard, leaking with pre-come that glistened even against the shower pouring down on it._

_“Please let me help you,” Bill said. His right hand inched toward other-Ennis’s dick, getting closer, reaching. “Please give me permission to touch.”_

_Ennis staggered back a step and held out a hand, but he didn’t know if he was defending himself against the sight or reaching out because he wanted it. He wanted to say something; his mouth moved, but nothing came out._

_He stepped forward again, and other-Ennis turned to look at him for a long moment, and then other-Ennis took his outstretched hand and pulled. Then he was real-Ennis in the shower, Bill behind him, and he was the one who was hard, with sudden good-body-feeling jetting all through him, up and over, finally centering in his dick. Oh, damn-yes, his dick, hard and tight and alive like it’d been that night in the tent with Jack, sparks in the air, between their lips, his come threatening to burst out of him any second, the most incredible feeling of all that good contained, held back, any second now, any second, but yes, held back to keep it going as long as it could go, so good. And right then, he felt the rest of it, the wonder of another man’s body pressed against him, what he had wanted always in his hidden, young-man’s center, unseen, unacknowledged, but throbbing always. That touch of Bill-behind-him almost brought him to his knees. He couldn’t breathe as his knees buckled, as his heart shouted with joy._

_“I’ve got you,” Bill promised. “You won’t fall.”_

_Bill’s outstretched fingers were an inch from his aching dick. Ennis’s balls swelled with desperation. He had to .... He had to .... Jesuschristalmighty, he had to come. All he had to do was ...._

_“Will you trust me? Will you let me help you?” Bill asked._

Ennis jerked upright in bed, gasping, and then he doubled over, holding his stomach with both hands. That hadn’t been real. Not real. 

Holyfuckingchrist, it sure had felt real. He swallowed against the liquor gunk in his mouth, thinking he surely needed to throw up, but he didn’t. 

“En .... Ennis?” 

Ennis about jumped out of his skin at the sound, Jack’s sleep-thickened voice from the other side of the bed. “You all ... all right?”

He shuddered all over. That had been Bill Springfield reaching for his dick! No, there was no way Ennis Del Mar was all right, even worse than the not-all-right that he’d been the past weeks. He’d been better when he wasn’t breathing, up close to the clouds. 

But he couldn’t tell Jack that. His head pounded in time with his hammering heart. It took a couple seconds before he could whisper, his voice rough as a tree trunk, “Nothing’s wrong. Go to sleep.” 

The shadowy figure stirred under the blanket, and even with hardly any light, Ennis recognized the way Jack’s shoulder moved and the tilt of the dark head. “No, I ... I can ... your daddy?”

Jack was still plenty drunk; hell, they both were. Sour whiskey fumes thickened the air, and yet still Jack asked about his daddy in his dreams. If it was possible for Ennis to feel any worse, that did it. Again he forced out, “Go to sleep.” Seemed now he was always saying that to Jack, wanting to get away from him, when practically his whole life he’d hopelessly longed to get closer. 

“All right.” Jack rolled over in his direction. An arm untangled itself from the covers and patted the mattress where his shoulder would have been if he’d been laying out flat. Then Jack rolled back where he’d started.

Ennis counted Jack’s heavy breaths until he reached ten, certain that Jack was sound asleep, before his trembling hand reached between his legs. His fingers skimmed the length of his dick and all around it. Damn! Fuck it! Fuck it forever! His goddamned traitor of a dick hadn’t changed one bit, and he couldn’t find any hint that he’d come in his sleep, like had happened a time or two in his life. Had he even been hard for real, when he was in the dream? He blinked against the heavy, hopeless pressure coming up so strong from his stomach and tightening his chest. All that feeling of his body come alive again had been only in his dream, not in the real world, based on how he remembered it felt and not feeling again. 

Based on ... Shit, he didn’t like Bill that way. He didn’t like anybody but Jack that way. He didn’t! Didn’t! Except .... Maybe .... Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. If he hadn’t let that massage go on, he never would have had this dream, and never would have realized that there was another man who looked good to his eyes, married or not. A real man, someone he knew, not from the pages of a magazine.

Slowly, he eased back down to the bed like a mouse, needing Jack to stay asleep cause there was no way he could face him now. Jesus, what a dream! The pinto and Jack-monkey and goddamned fingertips-Bill. Shot through with ice, he pulled the sheet over him and then reached for the blanket too. Was he able to get it up only in his dreams, for a narrow-waisted man who he trusted to make him well, and not for Jack? His Jack?

Ennis stared out into black nothingness, his last certainties taken away by his rushing fears. 

*****

A wet touch against his cheek woke him way too soon, because his eyes were sealed together and a host of bad feelings anchored him to the bed.

“Hey,” a voice whispered, and then somebody kissed Ennis again. Had to be Jack.

Jack. Ennis groaned out loud, remembering why he was stretched out on his belly, on the lowest, driest, most barren stretch of the earth, and then he tried to stop himself from making another sound. Why the hell couldn’t that dream have disappeared from his memory, like most of them did? He dragged an arm over his slobbered-on face, fisted the grit out of his eyes, and forced them open. “Wha?” Jack wavered in his sight.

Jack was dressed for work, like he always seemed to be these days. And those tense-lines were back, creasing his forehead. Ennis winced against the morning light.

“I’m running late, damn it.” Jack sounded hoarse. No wonder, with the drunk they’d laid on the night before. “I got to go, but what about breakfast for you? I could -- ”

He’d wanted to make love with Jack the night before, and instead he’d come so close to it with his goddamned therapist in his dream instead. Nothing made sense, and the idea of Jack getting breakfast for him made him want to gag.

“You don’t have to do nothing,” Ennis said low, closing his eyes and turning half away, wanting to hide from everything. 

“But I want to spend some time with -- ”

“I don’t need that. Go on your way.” 

Ennis waited a bit before Jack said, real reluctance in his voice, “Well, okay. Get some sleep.” 

Jack pressed another kiss on his cheek, and it felt like a real one, lingering, like Jack meant it. The door closed with a heavy thud that echoed in his heart, closing Ennis in with thoughts he didn’t want to think and feelings he didn’t want to feel. It took a full minute, maybe two, before the sound of that F-150 faded away and Ennis’s straining ears couldn’t hear it anymore. 

After that, for hours after that, what he mainly heard was Bill, asking, “Will you trust me? Will you let me help you?” 

And mainly what he thought was how he wished it was Jack he’d dreamed of instead, Jack who he trusted for help. 

*****


	16. Going Under

The peace offering of store-bought fried chicken that was on the truck seat next to Jack probably wouldn’t make it easier for Ennis to take the bad news he had to tell, especially considering that solid dark had fallen over the road back to Eagle Nest. It was almost nine o’clock on one hell of a long day when he shouldn’t have had to work at all. Nothing could put this day right. 

Corliss had waited until almost four o’clock in the afternoon before he sent Jack to Raton to pick up a load of lumber and wire that Jack knew wasn’t really needed. On a Saturday! Jack hadn’t cursed until he was outside the office, when he stopped next to his truck and let loose with a flood of anger. If Corliss had heard him, he would have been tarred, feathered, and shipped off to the nearest Baptist church for converting. But he made sure he wasn’t heard. He hauled himself into the Ford, stomped on the gas, and roared past the double-wide office, where he knew Corliss would be watching him out a dusty window. 

“Fuck you,” Jack had said as he drove by, and he put everything into it when he gave Corliss the finger too. Except he kept his hand down on the seat. 

He hadn’t gone straight to Raton, even though the supply store closed at five and he didn’t have much time to get there. Instead, he’d pulled into the ramshackle Texaco station on the outskirts of Cimarron to call and let Ennis know that even if he moved heaven, hell, and high water, it would be way past sunset before he got home. 

Over the phone, Ennis had heaved a sigh that went straight to Jack’s conscience. “Okay,” he said. 

Jack tightened his grip on the crusty old pay phone. “What? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” His voice sounded slow and syrupy. “A man’s got to work. I ain’t doing that right now, so it’s not like you can say no to the bossman. Your job’s the only one we got.” 

“Yeah, but....” Jack pressed his lips together, stomped his foot on the dirt floor of the tiny booth, and even though he could guess at the answer, finally let out with, “Why won’t he let me go home?” 

“I don’t know. Guess you’re the man the feedlot can’t do without. That’s a good thing, ain’t it?”

“It’s not a good thing when I haven’t had hardly any time to be with you the whole last week!”

“You were with me last night,” Ennis said. “Right?”

“Yeah, but.... Listen, about last night, I -- ”

“It don’t matter. You go do what you need to do, and I’ll see you when I see you.” 

“Goddamnit!” Jack roared into the phone. “Last night does too matter!”

But Ennis had hung up and hadn’t heard him. 

Jack had worried all day, through the afternoon and on the way home too, taking on Ennis’s big job. The man had a talent for worrying, there wasn’t any denying, but Jack felt like he’d become an expert the last few weeks. On top of everything else that occupied his mind, he had to add ... what? Ennis had acted stranger than a woman on the rag last night. What was going on? Not that Jack had expected their sex life to take up in short order in the same way, but Ennis had seemed willing, and that long, lean body stretched out in bed had been a sight for his hungry eyes. 

He scratched over his ear. This was the second time with Ennis that he’d done a solo act, and that just wasn’t like them. Jack didn’t like it. Even more, he didn’t like being swatted away like a fly buzzing around his man’s privates, the way Ennis had shoved him away the night before. Punched him, really. Then again, they’d both been drunk, and maybe he’d been too pushy and too fast. No maybe about it, he had, and he knew that. That had to be it. Plus, Ennis was recovering, so .... He hadn’t been hard there at the end when Jack had reached for him, but Jack’d had plans for that, if only the man had given him some time. 

The truth was, with all these extra hours he was working, they didn’t have any time.

The clock in the truck ticked past nine fifteen, and he passed the house lights of tiny Ute Park, pinpricks within the dark cloud of trees and looming mountain. He was still half an hour from County Road 19, and he couldn’t wait to get home. 

At long last, more than fourteen hours after he’d left that morning, Jack turned into their drive. He had to fight the impulse to speed up so he could come to a halt in a flying crunch of gravel that would have reflected his unsettled frame of mind. But his ribs, even though they were definitely getting better, were protesting from having to unload the lumber under Corliss’s watchful eye and the feedlot’s bright yard lights, so he drove like a smart man. 

But as he stopped outside their kitchen door, he uneasily peered out the truck windshield. There weren’t any lights on in the house. No flickering showing the TV was on. No signs of life. 

His heart jumped into his mouth as he grabbed the chicken, slid out, slammed the door shut, and walked fast around the front of the Ford. Ennis had been doing good, he told himself. There wasn’t any reason for him to drop to the floor and for Jack to find him there.

“Ennis?” he hollered as soon as he was inside the kitchen. He swiped off his hat, flipped on the light, and frantically searched right to the living room and left toward the washer and dryer. “Ennis, where are you?”

“Shut up!” came a muffled call from the bedroom. “Can’t a man get some sleep?”

Jack rubbed his eyes with one hand, trying to calm down. Ennis’s pride wouldn’t take it kindly if he let on how he’d panicked. 

He went through the front room, flicking on the light, and then stopped to slide his palm up to hold on to the doorjamb. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I thought you’d wait up for me. It’s not that late.”

Ennis was curled on his side with his back to the door. “Yeah, well, I was tired,” he said, not moving. “I’m a sick man, gotta get my shut-eye.”

Jack drew back in surprise. Since when did Ennis admit he was sick? Frowning, he put the bag of food down on the dresser, unzipped his jacket, and walked around to Ennis’s side of the bed. The light from the front room spilled in so he could see that Ennis had his eyes wide open and was watching him come closer. 

“Hey,” Jack said softly. He sat down carefully, into the curve of Ennis’s resting body, and laid his right hand like a feather on the shoulder. Under his fingers, he could feel the sweep of bone and muscle, so thin, lacking the hard strength of a working man that had defined Ennis for all his adult years. But it sure felt good to touch. Simply touching like this went a ways to easing the weight of his day. That’s how it had always been with him. The whole world could go to hell around them, and most of the time it had, but when he was with Ennis, things felt right. He wasn’t sure Ennis felt the same way right now, though.

Ennis closed his eyes, and it seemed to Jack that some tension released and he sank further into the mattress. Jack gently flexed his fingers against the white T-shirt Ennis was wearing, skimming the tips of his fingers over shirt and skin. Ennis’s eyelids fluttered and opened for a moment before closing again, but he didn’t say anything. 

“This feel all right?” Jack asked, hoping.

“Hmm,” was all the answer he got, but it was enough. Jack stayed right where he was for a while, just being there, and it was the best part of his day. He wished the day could end now, with no need for anything else except what they had right there. 

“Glad I’m finally home with you,” Jack said.

He watched Ennis blink. “Yeah?”

Like there was any question. But maybe in Ennis’s mind there was. “Yeah. Wanted to be with you all day.” 

“You’re a working man.”

“You will be again too, soon enough.”

Ennis hitched his shoulder, saying all too clearly he didn’t agree and would he please get his hands off. 

Jack grimaced and let his fingers slide away. “I brought home some chicken.”

“I ate already.”

Jack almost opened his mouth and said _Mind if I sit here with you and have my supper? We could keep each other company._ But Ennis didn’t seem to be in a company-keeping mood. Jack’s plan of telling what he had to say in easy stages faded away.

“Listen, I got some bad news. Some good news too.” 

Ennis rolled over onto his back. “You get into an accident with the truck?”

Jack let out a huff of breath, half-amused, half-exasperated. That sure was Ennis, all over, jumping to that conclusion. “No, that’s not it.”

“You get fired?”

If only. He was bending over backward not to get fired, but the alternative wasn’t likely to be unemployment so much as it might be .... What had happened to Diego preyed on his mind. Had he truly been shot down at the border? That afternoon months ago at the firing range, James had proved he handled a gun like a sheriff, making sure Jack had seen. 

He shoved that thought away. He’d watched too much TV, to think that James or Corliss would be eager to hold a rifle against him. He was misinterpreting or putting too much weight on things. 

“No, Corliss hasn’t fired me.”

“But he’s working you hard. I started thinking after your phone call this afternoon.” In the pale light, Ennis’s eyes scrunched up. “You got something you’re hiding from me again? Cause it don’t hardly make sense all this time you’re putting in for no reason. There some big project happening that you’re not telling me about? I can take it if that’s the case, but you’ve got to tell me what it is.”

_Yeah, Ennis, I think the real big project is that Corliss is deliberately keeping me too busy to think about going to the cops. It’s got to be that. Though I have thought about the cops. But I’m just a worthless, scumbag homo to them. They wouldn’t listen._

_What else Corliss is doing, all this busy work all of a sudden .... I’m not sure. It’s starting to worry me, though._

Ennis was waiting for an answer. Jack turned away and leaned his elbows on his knees as he sat on the edge of the bed. Without meaning to, his fingers clutched at his head, as if he could keep all the things he wasn’t telling Ennis from bursting out into the open. Ennis was only asking for some crumb of truth, but one thing ran to another and another.... 

“I hardly know,” he finally began. “All these extra hours, he’s got me taking care of every loose end, whether it’s in my part of the business or not, inside the office or out. You name it, I’ve been doing it. If he looked on me with favor, I’d suspect he was training me to move up in management somehow.” Jack managed to shrug. “But I think what’s really happening is that he’s playing the big boss over me and punishing me for taking the days off in Santa Fe.” Abruptly he brought his hands down and slapped his thigh. “Like you and me could help getting caught by the lightning!” 

“He’s a jerk.”

“God’s true words.”

“So what’s the bad news?” 

Jack slumped over. “I got to work tomorrow. Got to be in at noon.” 

Ennis didn’t answer right away, but after a while he said, “On a Sunday. You’re kidding. More of those EPA reports?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope, this time it’s going over contracts with the meat packers. But I let him know that I didn’t appreciate this schedule he has me on and that a man needed a weekend off.”

“Especially after being hurt like you’ve been.”

Jack nodded to the wall in front of him. He still couldn’t look at truth-seeking Ennis. “Yeah, definitely that, that’s what I could tell him, but really it’s because you need me here.”

“No, I don’t. I’m doing fine,” Ennis said in his I’m-a-strong-man-and-not-a-pansy voice.

“Get off it, Ennis, you -- ”

“You can work all day and every day, don’t you worry about me.”

Jack raised his face to the ceiling in pure Grade A exasperation. “Worry about you? Hell, no! Why should I....” He was getting so tired of catching his anger, catching his words and not letting out the truth of what he thought and knew and cared about. Tired of being scared out of his wits these days for too many different reasons, and going it alone. He’d thought that moving to Eagle Nest with Ennis meant the end of being alone. 

But it was a life-long reflex, wasn’t it? Lying to Ennis had become second nature to him when he’d been making those trips to Mexico and especially after he’d taken up with Randall. The truth would push Ennis too far. When he had told the truth, that one time.... He never wanted to live over that day by the lake, Ennis sinking to the ground in his arms, crying that he couldn’t take it anymore....

Jack caught his anger. 

“You make up any reason you want to about why I want time off. The thing is that I told Corliss I needed it. He wasn’t too happy about it, but he said that I could have next weekend off only if I worked tomorrow.” Jack shrugged, suppressing the trickle of unease that ran down his spine at the thought of being alone with Corliss again for hours the next day, especially with nobody else in the office with them most of the time. “So I made that deal. That’s the good news.”

“Huh. Well, it’s something.”

“Yeah. Best I could do. Maybe you’ll be okay enough next weekend so we can do something special, you know?”

“What? Something fancy like walking outside?”

Jack turned around to look at him. Why hadn’t he thought that Ennis must be going stir-crazy stuck in the house all day? “More than that.” 

A range of expressions crossed his stoic man’s face, small indications of doubt and fear and a touch of the old anger-against-the-world that about broke Jack’s heart. “Don’t know that I’ll ever be walking good enough for more.” His gaze shifted to the wall, to Jack, and then back to the wall. “Or doing anything good.” 

“Of course you will. See how much better you are already, and it’s only been, what, four sessions with that therapist of yours?”

“The therapist ain’t mine,” Ennis said heavily. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Don’t give up so soon. Like last night in bed, you gave up too soon, because I could have -- ”

“Said I don’t want to talk about it,” Ennis barked, his voice rising. 

“Okay, okay.” Jack held up his hands in surrender. 

“All right then.” 

Jack sat in silence for a while, wondering how his life had got so fucked up. He felt like a man paddling against the waves in the middle of the ocean, getting nowhere when there wasn’t anywhere to go. How much longer could he last? Tomorrow in Cimarron again, even if only for half time. Sunday morning with Ennis in this mood.... New concern stabbed him. Ennis had stayed in the bed the whole time they’d been talking, and that wasn’t like him either. 

“Hey, now,” Ennis said, and he reached out to skim his fingertips across Jack’s forehead. “There’s no need to look like that.” He sounded like he’d used up all his anger. “You must have brought that chicken for a reason.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to eat. Haven’t had anything since lunch, and that chicken smell is driving me crazy.”

“Then you go and eat. Watch a movie the way you do. Let me sleep.”

“All right,” Jack said helplessly. He stood up to leave. “Are you all right?” he blurted out.

Ennis’s sigh filled the whole room. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Not according to Jack’s understanding, he wasn’t. 

“You sleep good tonight.” He really meant that, but he couldn’t make it happen, could he? 

****

On a Monday morning that dawned with restless clouds racing across the sky, Jack didn’t get into work until eight fifty-five, way later than he usually arrived. He’d had one hell of a hard weekend, and he’d overslept. 

He’d gone to bed hours after Ennis had, tired in every bone and even more tired in his mind. He lay there for a while listening to his man’s soft snuffling in the night. He sure had liked the Ennis he’d found a couple days ago, teasing and drunk in the bathtub, with sweet smiles and giving sex that Jack had needed. That Ennis had gone off on a vacation somewhere, replaced by grumpy Ennis who wouldn’t string two words together for him, with his mouth turned down in a perpetual frown. Damn, Jack thought as he rolled away, hoping for some peace, he was worn out throwing himself against that brick wall of a man, trying to help.

He’d been so worn out that he hadn’t even thought of setting the alarm clock. 

He’d driven fast and furiously to Cimarron under the gloomy, autumn sky, but there was nothing for it. Corliss was already settled in his corner office when he arrived. Jack tried to walk toward his desk across the squeaking old flooring like he’d been there for hours, but it seemed that arriving late at the feedlot was almost as bad as arriving early. 

Corliss stared at him with a heavy scowl through his open office door. Jack pulled out his calculator and the feed projections Corliss had asked him to work up and bent over them. 

The boss made him sweat a full half hour before he headed Jack’s way. While he waited for the weight of disapproval to fall on him, Jack hated feeling like a kid in school. Yeah, that’s what was going on here. His desk over by the window, Andy’s near the front counter, Marge’s ancient typewriter set up closer to Corliss’s office: they were all being treated like kids, facing the nasty teacher with the big ruler.

Well, forget that. He was a grown man, and he deserved to be treated with respect. In a million years, he wouldn’t have accepted the job with Tulip Feedlot if he’d had any inkling that he’d be forced into acting and reacting like a ten-year-old. Even without all the complications of illegal workers and a dead body early in the morning, he wouldn’t have....

Jack’s mouth got dry as he considered those complications. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place -- ten rocks and ten hard places, with so much to consider if he was to try to leave the feedlot. He didn’t see how he could do it. Wouldn’t be fair to Ennis, wouldn’t be fair to him, and he wasn’t too sure of Corliss’s and James’ reaction to him walking away. Besides, day-to-day at work would smooth out eventually. Corliss was riding him hard now, but that couldn’t last. Eventually he’d run out of every new thing he wanted Jack to do. Hey, even the next weekend, he had off. 

So for the umpteenth time he decided it would be best for him and for Ennis to stay right where he was. He would keep as low a profile as possible and go along with Corliss’s demands for all this overtime until the man was satisfied Jack would keep his mouth shut. So what if Corliss and James made a few bucks off some Mexicans who wanted better lives for themselves and their families? Who was Jack to interfere with that? And the thing with Diego .... A mistake at the border, and James had said he would give the man a decent burial. 

Jack put his head down and got to work. When the bossman finally stood up and stalked over to his desk, he braced himself to take whatever got dished out. 

Corliss placed his fingertips on Jack’s coffee-stained green blotter, pressing hard and then harder until his fingers were bent almost flat. With an effort, Jack lifted his eyes from that possession of his desk to his boss’s face.

“We’re running a business here,” Corliss said in the steady, even voice that Jack had grown to hate. It was a voice that said nobody had a right to oppose him and that whatever he said was reasonable according to the laws of God and man. “Do you understand that?”

He’d done this a hundred times back in Childress, and he could do it here. He bobbed his head and forced out, “Sure do.”

“There are plenty of people out there wanting work.”

“I know.” Corliss’s eyes turned brittle, so Jack added, “Sure am glad I found work here.”

“You should be. But don’t think you’re indispensable. Nobody around here is.”

“Right,” he said cautiously, and Corliss seemed okay with that. But it was so much harder to do this than it used to be. It felt like he had to dredge up another person from deep inside to talk for him. That was the old Jack, he suddenly realized, who could suck up with the best of them. Not who he was now. 

“There’s work here to be done every day. You come in on the weekends, don’t you, Jack?”

Past Corliss, where Andy was sitting silently at his desk, he saw Andy’s eyes get wide. He guessed Andy hadn’t known how hard Corliss was riding him. “That’s right.”

“Those extra hours you’re putting in don’t give you special privileges.”

“I know that.”

“Do you somehow have time on your hands?”

His lips felt frozen. He made them move. “No, sir, that’s for sure.”

“In that case, make sure you arrive at the start of the workday.”

“Will do.”

“You didn’t do it today. You were almost an hour late. You can’t make that a habit.”

“I won’t, don’t worry about that.”

“Worry? I’ve got better things to do than worry about you. Arrive on time from now on. Do I make myself clear?”

“You sure do.”

“And?” 

Jack wanted to throw a punch at the smug bastard, not give him what he wanted, the last nail in Jack’s humiliation. But he did it, hating himself for saying, “It won’t happen again. Sorry.” 

“See that it doesn’t.” 

Andy threw him a sympathetic glance. Marge got up and said, “Mister Hamilton, I need your signature on this letter,” but as she followed him into his office, she turned back to Jack and rolled her eyes. She jumped when Corliss snarled, “This better not be filled with mistakes like the last hundred letters you’ve typed.”

*****

When Jack got home late again that night, he found Floyd sitting in the kitchen with Ennis, the remains of their casserole dinner spread out before them. Jack had driven to Eagle Nest almost as quickly as he’d driven to work, because he really needed some good Ennis-time to balance against Corliss on the warpath. No one in the office had escaped his wicked tongue. 

Jack had intended to storm into the kitchen and start complaining at the top of his lungs, to get the edge off, but there was no way he could do that now. Complain about his boss in front of Floyd, the generous hard-worker who’d seen so much of life? He could imagine what Floyd would think of him, a man made so small. 

Jack went into the bathroom, pissed, washed up, and cursed under his breath. He was beginning to wonder what he thought of himself. But then he put a smile on his face when he went back into the kitchen. 

Ennis seemed comfortable with Floyd there. Jack helped himself to the leftovers and listened to them talk about the Buckminster Ranch every which way from Sunday. Ennis, he realized, had missed this. With the old man’s way of drawing Ennis out, he must feel closer to his everyday world. So this, Jack told himself as he put more gravy on his chicken and rice, was a good thing. He liked Floyd, he did, and he appreciated that Floyd was trying to cheer Ennis up. Floyd seemed to be succeeding, at least a little, but Jack sure wished he knew what he was doing wrong that Floyd was doing right. 

Floyd stayed for hours. The three of them played cards; Jack didn’t win this time, and he tried not to care. Finally they settled the winnings -- less than five dollars overall -- and Jack held the door open for the old man. He walked out with Floyd and stood in the cold night air as his truck headed down the driveway. 

“Hey, Ennis,” he started to say as he walked back inside, but he stopped when he saw Ennis standing by the kitchen sink, leaning forward with his arms spread and fingers propped on the counter. He must have been looking out the window, though there wasn’t much to see. 

“What?” Ennis asked, straightening and looking over at him.

“Nothing. Just that Floyd looked spry tonight. Wouldn’t believe he’s seventy.”

“Seventy-one. Betty Jo stopped by today.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack sat down at the table and started putting the playing cards back in the pack.

“She brought some more food, but I was the one who put it in the freezer. Didn’t let her near it.”

Jack wasn’t sure why Ennis was guarding the freezer from his boss. “Okay.”

“I suppose we should start eating some of that venison she brought us this summer.”

“From that deer you -- ” Jack swallowed his tongue. “Sure. I’d about forgot it was in there.”

“We’ve got a lot of these casseroles to eat first. Even Floyd brought us food.”

“That’s nice of him,” Jack said cautiously.

Ennis shook his head like the slow tolling of a bell. “Never thought I’d be eating from other people’s kitchens. Wish he’d brought whiskey instead.” He pushed off from the sink and headed across the room. “I’m turning in.” 

“Hey,” Jack called after him. “Looks like you’re a lot steadier on your feet today.”

Ennis stopped where he was in the center of the front room. The light from the kitchen poured on his back, but his face was in shadow. “You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.” Not that he’d seen Ennis walk a lot this evening spent with Floyd, but there hadn’t been much leaning, and there was hardly a limp right now either. So, yeah, he thought Ennis was doing better. Besides, encouraging his stubborn Wyoming man couldn’t be a bad thing. Anything to improve Ennis’s mood.

“Uh.... ” Ennis seemed to hesitate where he was, but then he turned and walked a couple steps closer. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something. Closed it. Opened it again, and this time words came out. 

“If I’d died up on the mountain, what would you have done?”

Jack rocked back in his seat. “What the hell?” Was that what Ennis had been brooding over? “Why are you thinking stuff like that?”

Ennis stood there with calm wrapped around him, nothing like the night when they’d both got all wrought up talking about the storm. “Got a lot of time to think, Jack, here at home.”

“That won’t last much longer, I bet.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the way it is now.”

“There’s no need for your thoughts to go that way, Ennis. It didn’t happen.”

“I know. But if it had. What would you have done?”

Jack rubbed his hand all over his face. “Shit. I don’t .... Don’t ask me that. It came too close to being real.”

“I’m asking.”

Jack took a breath, but that didn’t help him come up with an answer he didn’t even want to consider. “I guess ... I guess .... Hell, I don’t know. I guess I still would have gone for help anyway, thinking maybe I ....” He trailed off. He would have tumbled down the mountain yelling for help louder than the thunder, convincing himself the storm had masked the sound of a heartbeat, the whisper of breathing. 

Ennis took a step closer, his face suddenly twisted as if he didn’t like thinking of his still body any more than Jack did. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean afterwards. If I’d kicked the bucket up there, or maybe in the hospital, would you, you know, would you be okay alone? After?”

What the hell kind of bee had got in Ennis’s bonnet? Jack slapped both hands on the table. “Damn, of course I wouldn’t be okay! What, you think I’d just wake up the next morning all cheerful and go about my business like normal?”

It seemed Ennis found the seam of the floor under his feet fascinating right then, the worn linoleum of the kitchen butted up against the buckled-here-and-there, age-darkened wood of the front room. “Guess not.”

“Damn right guess not.” He got up, walked over to where Ennis hovered between the two rooms, and took hold of his shoulders. “Hear me?” 

Ennis lifted his face then, and, so close, Jack looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure out what was going on. So guarded, Ennis was, looking back at him with those warm brown eyes that held the whole universe for Jack. The bad mood these past days, Jack suddenly guessed, was more than Ennis being impatient with the time it was taking him to get better.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, soft and quiet. 

Ennis shrugged within his grasp, but he didn’t step away. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“The therapist give you bad news about how you’re doing?” 

“Hell, no, I’m fine,” he said strongly. “Don’t make some fuss like a woman. I just got to thinking, and there’s no law against that. Now I’m headed for bed.”

But Ennis didn’t move toward the bedroom. Jack rubbed down both Ennis’s arms, shoulder to elbow, just to encourage him, he guessed, and he guessed because he liked doing it. But it seemed that was some sort of signal Ennis had been waiting for. He leaned forward, his eyes going smokey, as if ... maybe ... into kissing range. Jack lifted his face hopefully. 

“G’night,” Ennis said, even deeper than he usually spoke, and connected their lips. 

Jack didn’t want to push, not with Ennis so brittle, but he didn’t have to, since Ennis took the kiss from zero to sixty in about two seconds, diving into open-mouthed tonguing like he really meant it, and with heavy breathing the way Jack remembered when his man got all lathered up. Maybe this night they could .... The hell with the cards or TV or locking up the house, he would keep this kiss going with nothing interfering, if that’s what Ennis wanted. Ennis grabbed him around the waist and slid both hands around and down, taking possession of Jack’s ass with no question about it. Maybe Ennis had been so moody because he’d been just as sex-starved as Jack, and that’s why .... Well, who cared why? 

Jack kissed his man like it’d been months since they’d been together, which was almost right, and stepped right into him, rubbing his awakening dick smack against Ennis’s most important part. Ennis rubbed back. Fuck, but it felt good, old days, finally. In just a minute he would --

Ennis jerked away. “Hey!” Jack protested, and he tried to grab hold again. 

The look on Ennis’s face -- startled, like he’d never been reached for before -- made Jack let go in a hurry. 

“Sorry,” Ennis muttered. “I just don’t think....”

Ennis took another step away, way out of kissing range now, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes were bruised looking, like he’d been whupped in a fight he hadn’t expected to lose. Jack didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand any of this. Except ... maybe he had no idea of the pain Ennis was in.

“Are you hurting a lot?” 

Silence as Jack waited for an answer, as Ennis frowned an almighty frown and then looked even more lost than before. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I am.” 

Jack suddenly wasn’t sure he believed him, but why would Ennis lie? He said, testing, “I guess this was one of your therapy days.”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to get you a pill?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Jack huffed out air in frustration. Either Ennis was hurting, with a reason for turning Jack away, or he wasn’t. Which was it? 

“You sure?” He couldn’t help it, that came out rough and angry sounding. Jesus, Ennis had never turned him down for sex, and he’d never turned Ennis down. He didn’t like it. And what had happened to the truth-telling they’d pledged to each other back in Amarillo?

It would have helped if Ennis had turned on him then and they’d had one of their big fights. But he just said, “Yeah, I’m sure. Listen, I just wanted to say good-night, that’s all.”

“Sure, but -- ”

“And I did that, so ... good-night.”

“Suppose I wanted to go to bed too.”

“Fine. Keep quiet in case I’m asleep.”

Jack bit his lip as Ennis stomped off and disappeared into the bedroom. Then he turned in a circle right where he was, over and over again, mouthing silent curses. Ah, hell, why would he expect Ennis to make sense? In twenty-one years, he’d about driven Jack crazy. Fuck going to bed. He was watching TV until he couldn’t anymore.

*****

The next day Jack tried to plan sales calls so he could be as far away from Corliss as he could for the rest of the week. For once, luck was on his side, because potential customers all seemed to have room for him in their schedules. Even better, Corliss was in and out Tuesday morning and didn’t aim much more than a passing barb at Jack. When Corliss announced that he’d be out of town the upcoming Friday through Monday, that explained why he wasn’t insisting that Jack work with him that weekend. Jack wished he had somebody’s hand to shake for that time away from the boss’s demands.

For the rest of Tuesday, he drove mainly into southern Colorado, through the broad, uplifted land east of Trinidad. On Wednesday he went south from Cimarron, deeper into the dry ranchland of eastern New Mexico, and had a good day connecting with ranchers he hadn’t reached before. He began to relax. _See,_ he told himself, _you thought things would settle down and they have._

At least, he began to relax at work. At home, he didn’t know how things were. He had hoped after the out-of-nowhere conversation about dying and leaving Jack on his own that they’d be able to talk over dinner, so he could figure things out. But both nights Ennis was back to grunts in response to anything Jack said. It was almost like he hardly knew Jack was there, that his sight was turned inside and not outside. Ennis chewed whatever casserole they were eating and swallowed it, but it seemed more like he was chewing over thoughts, and Jack couldn’t break through to where he’d gone. 

On the good side, it was clear that Ennis was getting around more easily. On Wednesday, he got dinner on the table mostly by himself, and he didn’t hold onto the counter more than once or twice. When the plates were empty, he sat in silence while Jack cleaned up and then walked with him to the back room. In the doorway, Ennis took a breath Jack had no trouble hearing, and then he took the step down in an almost-balanced rush. Jack had to fold his lips against a comment about how well Ennis was doing. He knew as sure as the night followed the day that he’d get his head bit off if he did. 

Even so, as he followed Ennis over to the TV side of the room, he thought that those exercises he hadn’t seen seemed to be working. He guessed he should be grateful to the physical therapist he didn’t know much about, and he wished there was some other kind of therapist who would help with other things, like talking things, like sex things, like looking into the brain of Ennis Edward Del Mar, a mystery to every person on Earth.

Down into his new recliner Jack went, such a source of joy to him that birthday night he’d got it. Since coming home from the hospital, Ennis had taken to sitting in the corner of the couch, propped up against the wall. But this night, he plopped down into his ratty old Wyoming chair. Jack wondered at the change, but Ennis was fiddling with the TV remote with a fierce concentration that he wouldn’t try to break into. At least they were in the same room together. It was real nice sitting side by side, what Jack had only got those two days after his birthday, before the storm.

So Jack watched TV, though Wednesday had crap shows on, taking what he could get, this time with Ennis silent beside him, the TV talking, but still some hint of what used to be such a good time, such a comfortable time, a happy time, them living together in peace. 

In the middle of a made for TV movie about the Mafia, he was startled by hearing Ennis say, “You think you could get my glasses? I left them in the kitchen.” 

Well, that was a first, asking for help. He looked at Ennis sideways, but Ennis didn’t meet his eyes. “Sure,” Jack said, not wanting to make too much of it. He got the glasses and a beer for each of them that Ennis didn’t hesitate to take. 

“Thanks,” Ennis said, taking up one of his magazines.

“You’re welcome,” Jack said. 

That was it for talking until ten o’clock when Ennis stood up all of a sudden. “I don’t want to hear the news,” he announced. “There’s nothing good from anywhere in the world.” 

“Oh. All right. I’ll ... I’ll stay up a bit.”

Ennis, halfway across the room, stopped where he was. Seemed to Jack that he’d been doing that a lot lately, starting and stopping. 

Ennis kept his head turned to the side and down, like he was talking to the dust on the floor, but he said, “You think you could give me a hand with this step here?”

Holy shit, Ennis asking for help twice in one night. Something was going on, but that something was good if it meant Ennis was letting him back in where he belonged. Jack cleared his throat and tried not to sound too eager when he said, “Sure, I can do that.” 

Though Ennis had objected plenty to being helped before, he took it without words this time: Jack’s arm around his waist, his other hand up on Ennis’s shoulder, guiding and supporting while Ennis took the one step up without much trouble. Jack wondered when putting his hands on Ennis like this would go back to being an ordinary thing, not something that got him thinking sex-thoughts, a simple hand on a hip. 

“Much obliged,” head-down-Ennis said.

It was the strangest thing, Jack thought as he watched Ennis walk away, losing his balance and then catching it quickly, how the two of them, so close before, had somehow got this distance between them now. How the hell had that happened? Jack frowned, his eyes glued to Ennis’s scrawny ass. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t okay with him that Ennis-home-at-last, what he’d so desperately wanted, had somehow turned into one-more-thing Jack had to work against, put up with, and worry about in the middle of the night, instead of being everything that was right in his world.

Damn. He wanted .... He needed ... something. For Ennis to talk to him, for him to get better real fast, goddamnit. Or ... Sex. Sex would go a long way to filling up the suddenly hollow feeling he got watching Ennis turn into the bedroom. 

But he wasn’t going to get sex this night, and he knew it. Sighing, he went back to his chair, thinking that the house was so much bigger than it used to be. 

*****

Jack spent most of Thursday morning drinking coffee to get fully awake and brooding over how to get Ennis to open up. When that stubborn ass he lived with didn’t want to talk about something, it didn’t get talked about. So how were they supposed to get past whatever the problem was? 

A little after ten-thirty, when he was on the way out to see the best of his prospects, the phone on the counter rang. He was closest, so he picked it up.

“Tulip Feedlot, Jack Twist speaking. Can I help you?”

“I want you to cancel whatever you’ve got scheduled for the afternoon,” Corliss told him. “I’ll be back there by noon, and then I want you with me.”

Shit! He’d already spent more time with Corliss over the weekend than a bridegroom did with his newly-wed bride. What did the man want from him now?

Questions like that did him no good. He swallowed his indignation. “Could you make it one-thirty? I’m headed for the Rojas Ranch with an appointment right now, and you know how important that is. We could pick up a thousand head right away if I can get him to sign on -- ”

“I said noon and I meant it. Be there.”

Jack slammed the silent phone back on the receiver as fast as he could, like he might get some disease if he kept it in his hand. Behind him, Andy said, “Let me guess. That was Corliss.”

He rubbed his fingertips over his mouth, trying to stop himself from saying the wrong thing. Was there anybody left he could talk freely to, who would understand his misgivings about time with the boss? More than misgivings, though it was hard to tell exactly why there were shivers prickling across his shoulders. Jack thought about the five hundred dollars in his dresser drawer and turned around. “He wants me to cancel with Rojas. Can you beat that? Does he want me to pick up business or not?”

Andy lifted his shoulders and then put his hands over his ears. “See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing.”

“Know nothing,” Marge put in from over by the copying machine. 

“Yeah, but....” There wasn’t anything else Jack could say except _I’m not nothing,_ which he didn’t know if he could. He was good at this job, damn it, and Corliss was forcing him to.... 

He scratched the inside of his wrist and then pinched it hard. He. Had. No. Choice. This was his plan, to go along with whatever Corliss dished out. So he picked up the phone again to make his best potential client think he was wasn’t reliable. He could barely force out the lies that excused him.

At five minutes before noon, Corliss stormed into the office, slapping the door shut behind him and walking heavy-footed across the ancient linoleum. “Go to lunch,” he directed Andy with no give in his voice at all. “Now.” He turned around and confronted wide-eyed Marge. “You too.”

Jack winced when she picked up the brown paper sack from her desk. “But Mister Hamilton, I brought my own food today.”

He actually raised a hand as if to strike her. “I don’t care. Get out! Get out now!” 

Marge grabbed her purse and ran like a scared rabbit. Andy wasn’t far behind. Jack gulped.

“Wait for me,” Corliss growled at him. He stalked into his office and slammed the door. 

Jack subsided into his squeaky desk chair that wasn’t nearly as noisy as the thoughts running through his head. Jesus! What had set Corliss off? Through the office walls, he could hear Corliss’s angry, raised voice, talking on the telephone. 

_“Why didn’t you keep moving the money to Alejandro like we planned? Every three ... Raymond kept ... schedule, so why couldn’t you -- You wouldn’t have this problem if you’d ... You can’t back out now. I don’t care ... your excuses.”_

Jack shifted his shoes against the trailer floor. He could make out almost every word because Corliss was spitting them all out. He didn’t understand what it meant, though he’d bet dollars it was somehow about moving the illegals out of Mexico, but he didn’t want to hear it. Why had the cattle decided to stop lowing right this minute, and why wasn’t the refrigerator running so he couldn’t hear? 

_Just because the bank examiners are .... You’ve got a few weeks, you can hide ....”_

Bank examiners? Shit. Jack eyed his jacket on the hook, but he didn’t think he should leave. Corliss had told him to wait ....

 _“What should we do with the cash, then?”_ A pause while the other guy must have been talking, and then, _“Unacceptable … isn’t any good without …. You’ve got to keep it and transfer ... when you can, at least until we get --”_

Jack jerked his bottom drawer open to make some noise and ruffled some papers down there. He leaned all the way over and lifted the pile, and then he dropped it back where it’d been. He didn’t want to know anything about the money Corliss was making on the side.

Corliss said, his voice a snarl, _“You’re a coward, Tony. You’re going to make me come to the bank and get it, aren’t you?”_

Jack slammed the drawer shut and prayed from the deepest part of his brain that somehow still believed in somebody watching over him. _God? Listen to me! I don’t want a trip to the bank today, not this afternoon, hear me, you up there? I didn’t sign on for any of this!_

Corliss appeared again, stalked with clenched fists over to the bathroom, and emerged from it a minute later. Then back into his office he went, not even glancing Jack’s way, only this time he left the door gaping open a good six inches. 

Jack pressed his fingers over his eyes as he sat like an obedient student, but he was as jumpy as if a rattler was coiled at his feet. That Corliss didn’t seem to care he was overhearing all this was a really bad sign. How far into his business did he want to pull Jack? 

_“Raymond? Hamilton here. We’ve got a problem. I know you’re already working with your share of the cash, but Tony says he can’t -- ”_

Jack got up as noisily as he could, grabbed his jacket, and slipped out the door. The autumn wind ruffled his hair, and his truck beckoned him from not far away. But he stayed where he was, on the top step, holding on to the doorknob, and waited. 

In a few minutes he heard, “Jack!” 

He slipped back inside, saying, “Here I am.” 

“Let’s go.” Corliss tossed him keys that he barely managed to catch. “You’re driving.”

He was? Shit, shit, shit. Okay, okay, he could do that. It was only driving....

Jack had to walk fast to keep up with Corliss. He led the way around to the back of the stable, where Jack had never seen him or anybody else park, and there was a brand new, white Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz, way too fancy for the dust, dirt, and cattle smells all around. 

Jack opened the driver’s-side door and slid in like he wasn’t sure if he was entering the den where that rattler lived. The engine turned over with a muted roar. There weren’t many men who wouldn’t want to control all that horsepower, but Jack really wasn’t interested. 

Jack chanced a glance at Corliss, tough and inflexible as a stone in his sharp black jacket. 

“Uh. Where to?”

“Raton,” Corliss said, biting off the word. “To the bank. We’ve got business with a man there.” 

Inside, Jack growled, _You didn’t listen to me, God! You never do!_ On the outside, he nodded, put the car in gear, and drove off. 

Once on the road, Corliss folded his hands in his lap and stared straight ahead. A mile passed and they were out of Cimarron, knifing through the broad plain south of the Sangres, with the mountains a smokey blur on the horizon. Another mile and then another; cattle were scattered along the fence line. And still Corliss didn’t say a word, not even some comment designed to cut Jack down and keep him in his place. An abandoned house flashed by.

Jack’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He sat up straighter and kept checking his mirrors, although how that would keep him safe, he didn’t know. From roadway dangers, maybe, but not from .... Ah, hell, it was just a drive to the bank, and Corliss was in a bad mood. Jack was an expert in being the brunt of bad moods by now. 

After fifty minutes on the road, Raton was dusty in the muted, cloudy-light as Jack turned into the bank’s lot and parked under a lonely, bedraggled tree. 

Corliss got out, slammed the door shut, and came around to Jack’s side of the car. “Come on,” he said impatiently, his voice sounding sharply through the rolled-up window. “You’re coming in with me. I might need your help.” 

Jack hated his dry mouth. He hesitated. 

Corliss jerked on the handle of the locked door, and Jack opened it right away. “It’s a bank withdrawal,” Corliss said. “Nothing you haven’t done before.”

But he hadn’t done this before. He hadn’t walked through the bank lobby, by-passed the tellers, and gone to an even fancier office than he’d been to with Andy. He hadn’t been introduced to the secretary as “Jack Twist, my associate.” He hadn’t stood in the doorway, trying to clamp down his ears, while Corliss and the Tony he’d hollered at -- Anthony Webster, the nameplate on his desk said -- stood in a corner and whispered to each other. He hadn’t ever seen Corliss Hamilton white with this kind of rage. If he was Tony-the-coward, five-foot-ten, sharp dresser, close-to-retirement manager over bank employees, he’d be afraid. 

“How much?” Corliss asked, just loud enough for Jack to make out.

“I fit it all in one briefcase,” Tony said, and Jack heard that too.

Corliss turned to him. “I can handle this myself. Wait in the car.”

Back through the glass-walled lobby Jack went. One of the tellers said _Hi_ to him, and he said _Hi_ back. 

In the Caddy, Jack took a deep breath and adjusted the rear view mirror. That hadn’t been too bad. Except .... Jesus, bank examiners. 

One minute later Corliss emerged, carrying a briefcase. It really would be best if Jack didn’t try to figure out anything, but the truth of it -- some kind of money laundering, it had to be -- was right there. 

“Back to Cimmaron?” Jack asked hopefully, once Corliss was sitting next to him again.

“La Veta.” 

Jack wracked his brain. He knew that name, but he couldn’t remember where it was. 

“Uh, where’s La Veta?” he finally asked. 

If looks could shrink a man, Jack was about one inch tall after getting the treatment from Corliss. “Don’t you know? How long have you lived here?”

“Since April,” Jack said. “Sorry, can’t say I’ve ever been to La Veta. How do we get there?”

“Straight up I-25 to Walsenburg, then west on 160. It’s in Colorado. If you drive properly, it will take us seventy minutes. Can you do that, Jack?”

“Sure can,” he said against the stare of Corliss’s eyes, sharp and winter-cold. 

Through Raton they went, stopping at a red light for what seemed a long time. Corliss sat gripping the edges of the briefcase on his lap as if he had to defend it against all comers. Tension radiated off him, making Jack feel as if the two of them were well and truly trapped together.

 _Not me,_ Jack told himself as the light finally changed and he was able to aim for the entrance ramp to the interstate. _This is his problem, whatever it is, not mine._ He told himself that more than a few times.

A few miles of silence passed, and then they were going up over the wide pass that separated Raton and New Mexico from the Colorado state border. 

Next to him, Corliss finally stirred. His thumbs moved on the catches of the briefcase, and it opened. Inside was the money Jack didn’t want to see. The case was crammed full of bills thrown in helter-skelter.

“Damn him,” Corliss said through clenched teeth. Jack didn’t know that he’d ever heard Corliss use a curse word before, him and his uptight Baptist beliefs. 

Methodically, Corliss began to count the money, and every time he reached five hundred dollars, he recited it out loud. 

“Five hundred.”

“One thousand.”

“One thousand five hundred.”

A lot of the bills were twenties with a smattering of tens and even fives. Deeper in, though, it was mostly fifties and hundreds. 

“Twelve thousand five hundred.”

“Thirteen thousand.”

Christ! How much was Corliss charging those Mexicans to get them across the border? And he wasn’t even close to halfway through. 

“Twenty-seven thousand.”

“Fifty-two thousand five hundred.”

Into even stacks the money went, wrapped into thousands at a time with rubber bands. The chaos that had been inside the briefcase was re-ordered under the man’s determined counting. It took a while, more than halfway to Walsenburg, before the last bill had been picked up, counted, and wrapped.

“One hundred and forty-two thousand, six hundred and twenty.” 

How many people ever were in the same space as that much cash? All those bills in neat piles disappeared as Corliss closed the briefcase with a snap, and Jack riveted his attention once more to the road.

La Veta was set on the edge of some soaring peaks of the Rockies, a vacation resort with a short but prosperous Main Street. The Country Bank of La Veta was an inconspicuous storefront between a cafe and a souvenir shop. Jack pulled up in front of it. The words on the front door were sharp and clean as if they were freshly painted, and the president’s name was Raymond J. Smith. Corliss let him stay in the car this time. After five minutes inside, he came out with a scowl, but at least without the briefcase.

“Back to Cimarron,” he was ordered.

Jack forced himself to focus on driving. His mouth was dry, but the stripes passing under the tires wavered like they were under water. 

****

With only another ten minutes to Cimarron, Jack was strung tight as a wire because of the unexploded bomb sitting next to him. During the two hours since La Veta, Corliss had held his silence. 

The sky had finally cleared of the lowering clouds that had followed them all afternoon, giving way to the uniquely-bright, high-altitude sun that was headed for the western horizon. As the car barreled down highway 64, they aimed straight for it. 

A headache had erupted behind Jack’s eyes as they crossed the state line, and now the stabbing sunlight made it worse. He narrowed his sight against it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like an icepick was stuck in the middle of his brain. On one side was all the shit from the feedlot, on the other side everything going on with Ennis, and all of it throbbed. His hands on the wheel tightened.

He wanted to rub at both his temples but couldn’t. He couldn’t take this anymore. Something had to give. If only things with Ennis and him could be made right, back to normal, no more sex-punches, then he could put up with just about anything else.

Ennis. Goddamn Ennis. Light-of-Jack’s-life Ennis. 

Okay, he needed to spend some uninterrupted time with his man and get him to open up. Tonight he’d do it. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and if he had to back Ennis up into a corner, then he’d do that. Or ... or tie him to a chair, stick matches between his toes, something. There had to be a way to break into the silence. 

Shit. He doubted any of that would work. 

Jack aimed a glance toward Corliss, there and then away as quick as he could. It was hard to tell when things had got so bad at work. It’d been so gradual, one thing on top of the other. But then he remembered this coming weekend, just one more day until no work, just free time and Ennis. God, the way he felt right now, he’d sleep for a week. Hopefully with that man of his by his side, there for when he woke up and ....

But maybe there was a real problem with Ennis getting better, something he knew and Jack didn’t, something new the therapist had uncovered, or maybe Ennis’s recovery had hit a dead-end point and he wouldn’t ever get any --

“I want your attention, Jack,” Corliss said. 

Jack couldn’t help himself, he jerked as if a bucket of icy water had been dumped over his head. Grabbing his brain and forcing it back to the here-and-now was like dislocating his own finger. 

“Sure,” he said. “You’ve got it.”

“I rely upon your discretion concerning what we’ve done this afternoon.”

Opening his mouth about this trip wasn’t an option, and he knew that. “Okay.”

“As you are aware, we sometimes run a cash-based business.”

 _I don’t expect the Mexicans to hand you a credit card as they’re wading across the Rio Grande._ Though it seemed to him it would have needed a whole army of people giving up their money to produce this afternoon’s counting. Then again, what the hell did he know?

“Jack? Did you hear me?”

“I heard you. Cash-based business. Right.”

“You drove me to those two banks. Didn’t you?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and thought of the three monkeys with their hands over their eyes, their ears, or their mouth. Maybe Andy and Marge thought it worked that way, but he had news for them. Sometimes a man saw or heard even when he was doing his best not to. 

“Guess I did.”

“Good. I’m glad you realize that. We are in this together now, you and I and a select few people. People who will prosper if they stay together. Anyone who breaks from the group....” From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Corliss shake his head as if he couldn’t conceive of that happening. “Anyone who breaks from the group will have a lot of explaining to do, and I am not talking about to the authorities. I mean explaining to me and to James. Understand?”

The threat was as real as the man sitting next to him. No matter his determination to do nothing but drive, Corliss had strong-armed him into being implicated without laying a hand on him. He was a witness to those one hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. He was in deep water for sure. 

“Sure. I get it.”

“Don’t forget that the authorities do not look kindly on these activities that you’ve been a part of today.”

Sweat prickled across his forehead, and he wanted to wipe it away, but he couldn’t show that much weakness. Strong as he could, Jack said, “I told you this before, and I meant it. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not talking to anybody either. What you do is your business.”

“Good,” Corliss said. “I’m pleased that I haven’t underestimated you.”

Right then, the old Texaco station finally came into view, and Jack thanked the God who never paid attention to him that he was spared from having to say or listen to anything else. He’d never wanted to get into the office with Andy and Marge more than he did now. 

Three minutes later he gratefully parked the Caddy behind the stable, pushed down on the emergency brake with as much force as he could, and shut the damn thing off. Stiffly, he got out of the car, blinking against his headache and holding his sore ribs. 

“Are those still bothering you?” Corliss asked as they walked around the car to the path. He sounded surprised and vaguely accusing, as if Jack should have recovered as soon as Corliss had forced him into working again. 

_No, King of the Tight Asses, I’m getting ready to bow down before you_ was what he wanted to say. “Yeah,” was what he did say. “Ribs take a while to heal.” That was about the only truthful thing he’d offered Corliss the whole day.

Corliss checked his watch and then, as they turned down the dirt drive toward the office, said easily, kindly, as if he’d never threatened Jack and as if the two of them had spent a pleasant day together, “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” 

Jack literally did a double take. “What?”

Corliss waved a hand. “Go home. To ... where’s that you live? North of Eagle Nest. I appreciate what you’ve done today. It won’t be forgotten.” 

Jack stopped where he was as Corliss went on. Time off? After the shit that Corliss had put him through when he was late on Monday morning? What was the man trying to put over on him? 

Apparently nothing. He meant it. Corliss disappeared into the sagging doublewide, and Jack was left alone under the unwavering sun. His conscience twinged; the boss would probably go back to scaring Marge out of her wits. 

But that wasn’t his problem now. He had a whole boatload of other problems that were way bigger and had suddenly got right up in his face. 

“Shit,” he said straight down to his boots. What was he going to do now? 

“Hey, Jack,” James said as he walked by. The bunk manager gave him a quizzical look, and Jack couldn’t blame him, because he was caught in a whirlwind of thought. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Jack said, which made James raise an eyebrow. Jack turned on his heel. He needed to get out of there. 

Thirty seconds later he was roaring down the road doing twenty miles over the speed limit, headed for Ennis. 

*****

As he turned into their driveway on County Road 19, Floyd in his truck was coming out. A little resentful, Jack lifted his hand in greeting, and Floyd did the same in the country way. Damn that Floyd had the time to take care of the horses and visit during his working day when Jack himself was stuck by.... 

His foot on the accelerator slackened, and he peered through the windshield. What was that? Something by the side door? 

No. Some _body_ by the side door, looking Jack in as he drove closer and closer. That was Ennis standing outside, hatless, square on both legs, and not turning away. 

Jack smiled so wide his face might’ve split. Maybe God doled out his favors in small bunches and aimed them where they were needed most. About a hundred pounds of weight lifted from his shoulders.

He pulled up a little short of where he normally put the truck and watched Ennis carefully pick his way across the grass. He rolled down the passenger-side window, and Ennis took advantage by leaning in on crossed arms. 

“Well, look at you,” Jack said. “You got me wanting to hoot and holler.”

“It ain’t much,” Ennis replied, rubbing his chin on the shoulder of his jacket like a kid.

“It sure is.”

“Yeah?” 

“You outside here is the best sight I’ve come across by a long shot, and I’ve been all over New Mexico and Colorado today.” 

Ennis gave him a look that held a hint of amusement to it, and the simple easiness of it shot straight to Jack’s heart. “Is that so?” Ennis said. “Ain’t you the world traveler.”

 _I only want to travel around you._ The thought came shooting out of nowhere. _When are we going to have that again?_

The need for unfettered sex with Ennis struck him hard in the gut, with a yearning he hadn’t experienced since the old, impossible days when there’d been months between their coming together. Ennis looked damn good, the sunlight shining on his hair, setting it aglow like he was nineteen again. There was nothing Jack wanted more that moment than to get out of the truck and pull Ennis close. His arms ached with the wanting.

The open look on Ennis’s face faded as Jack stared at him, trying not to show how turned on he was. He was only forty. A man had needs.

“Listen, bud,” Ennis started. “There’s something I need to….” 

He stopped and examined his fingers like he was trying to pull words from them, but after a couple seconds he shook his head and pushed away from the truck. 

“What?” Jack asked. “What is it?” 

“Nothing. Not important.”

Jack sighed and shut down the truck. He got out and followed as Ennis retraced his steps, headed for one of three mis-matched folding lawn chairs. He let himself down like an uncoordinated colt, but he wasn’t any less appealing to Jack for all that; Ennis never had been the most graceful man in the world, except for when he was on a horse. Or on a bedroll, on a nest of pine needles, in a tent .... And the things the two of them could get up to on a bed. 

Jack forced his mind toward other things. “Hey,” he said. “Where did these chairs come from?” 

Ennis looked out over the yard toward the forest. “Floyd picked them up for us at a garage sale he was at last weekend. I paid him three seventy-five for them.”

The two chairs to either side of Ennis weren’t brand new, but they were in pretty good shape, with mesh seats and backs. The one Ennis was sitting in looked older but was plenty good enough for them. 

Jack dropped down into the red chair as the long afternoon with the boss-from-hell swept over him. He pulled his hat down a little farther over his eyes and stretched out his legs. “God bless Floyd,” he said in sincere appreciation. 

“Yeah,” Ennis said. “He’s something.”

The hint of a chill set in as they sat in silence and watched the shadows lengthen across the yard. Jack didn’t feel the need to say anything; he and Ennis had sat like this so many times. But not recently. When they’d finally made the decision to grab life and live it together, life had grabbed them right back and dumped them in the mess they were in. 

Jack sighed. He needed this comfortable silence to come down from the pressure of the day, from his worries, from his fears, before he said anything. If only he could hide from it all. 

“Quite a sight,” Ennis said quietly.

Jack lifted his head and saw that, yeah, it was. The forest seemed to be on fire with color as its outer edge of oaks, pines, and a few aspens picked up the late afternoon sun. The few remaining leaves -- the reds, oranges, deep bronzes, and yellows that were stubbornly clinging to the oak limbs -- swayed in slow, slow motion, barely moved by the whisper of a breeze. Even the scrubby bushes that had sprung up along the tree line, good for nothing but hiding the mice, were shining. The pines stood tall, defending the secret, shadowy depths.

The light couldn’t last, but he guessed it was a good half an hour or more until the sun over his shoulder dropped behind the mountains. Minute-by-minute, Jack watched the gold slowly move up from root along the trunks of the trees. Long slivers of sunlight gilded the yard. Soon enough, nothing would be left except a muted, silvery gray, the leftovers from the day. He slouched a little more, sliding onto his tailbone, and tried to let his headache drain out through his feet into the land. He was home now. 

Ennis broke their silence. “You’re back from work early.”

Jack rolled his head, trying to get the Corliss-caused kinks out of his neck. “Yeah, it’s a miracle.”

“I can get food ready if you’re hungry.”

“Not right now. You want to eat?”

“Nah. I’m good.” 

Eventually the cold would drive them inside, he guessed, though they both had jackets on and Ennis was like a snowman in the way he could tolerate the temperatures diving down. Already Jack could feel a little nip to his face and fingers, but he wasn’t going to move unless he had to. 

“Reminds me of -- ” but then he stopped. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.”

_Not nothing. Their first night on a trip to the Big Horns. When the flickering of the fire was the only light in miles, when all the stars were out but he and Ennis still hadn’t moved from next to one another in their low camp chairs, when Jack thought about the hours ahead and how they would come together, so much better than sex with Lureen, so different from sex with Lureen because of how he felt about Ennis deep inside, the lodestone that called him north again and again and again ...._

_That time._

_When an owl called in the darkness and Jack turned to say something, when he was caught by the firelight on Ennis’s face, his man, and Ennis turned to him and their eyes met and did not stray. Did not stray._

_That time. That perfect moment of peace, of being wanted. How could he have forgotten? Ennis’s look and the longing behind it had carried him for a lot of years._

“Ennis,” he said. He reached out his right hand, seeking the contact that Ennis never used to give him.

“Yeah, bud?” Ennis’s palm slid against his, and he twined their fingers together and held. 

“Would you go away with me?”

He hardly knew where the words had come from, but his fear of Corliss surely propelled them. _Go away from the feedlot, away from the valley, away to a new and different life where Corliss can’t find us. I know I meant for us to live and stay here, and I can see your face in my mind against the mountains, old and satisfied, the man and his valley, but I don’t know if I can do this._

Ennis’s brow furrowed. “Away? What, you mean like .... Like for the weekend?”

Jesus, yes! Jack skidded away from the wholesale retreat from Eagle Nest and latched on to Ennis’s idea instead. He’d have a few days when he wouldn’t have to confront what was going on at work, and he’d have Ennis all to himself with time to find a way over the silencing, distancing gulf that had sliced between them, no matches-between-toes necessary.

Jack leaned forward, but he kept hold of Ennis’s hand. “I could leave work early tomorrow since Corliss won’t be there, and we could get started then. Go....” He waved his other hand in the air. “Anywhere. North of Taos or down by Morphy Lake that Morgan told me about. Anyplace to get away for a while.”

Ennis seemed to get smaller somehow, seemed to shrivel inside of himself. He pulled his hand away and chewed his lower lip. “I don’t think -- ” 

It was a good idea. A great idea. “It doesn’t have to be far away or anyplace you need to do a lot of walking,” Jack insisted. “Just someplace that -- ”

“Shhhhh.” Ennis shushed him.

“No, I won’t shut up. I really need -- ”

Abruptly Ennis stood up. “Hear that?”

_Blam!_

The sound of a rifle shot not far away brought Jack jerkily out of his chair too, with wild thoughts of _They’re after me!_ shooting adrenalin through his limbs. And then another and another, all of them coming from somewhere in the foothills to their right, behind the stables. He put his irrational fear aside. It was hunting season in New Mexico. That was all. 

“This here is private land,” Ennis said roughly, glaring toward the upslope. “They better stay off it. I don’t want no hunting on -- ”

“Quiet .... ” Jack breathed. 

A flash of movement, shadows parting, and suddenly the buck who seemed to have taken up permanent residence in their lives darted into the yard, running with ferocious intent out from behind the shed, straight toward them. 

A moment later he came to a standstill in a patch of slanting sunlight. His chest heaved, his head was held high, and he was ready to take off again with any threat. The buck stared at them. His large ears swiveled and then went still.

“Ahhh, look at him,” Ennis said in a murmur more suited to a church than their side yard. Jack swallowed to hear the emotion in Ennis’s voice. It wasn’t often he allowed that part of himself out of his closely-guarded heart. “Ain’t he a beauty.”

As if arrogantly agreeing, the buck tossed his head, and the white of his antlers flashed. Then another shot rang out from a distance away, farther up the hill, and the animal stiffened as if listening closely.

Ennis slowly put out one hand. Like every Wyoming boy who had hunted and killed his share of elk and deer, Jack knew that a deer’s eyesight wasn’t all that good except when there was moving involved. 

“You be safe now,” Ennis told the buck intently, the words coming out like a command that couldn’t be disobeyed. “Don’t let nobody get you.” An audible breath. “You got a right to live.”

With another toss of his head, the deer turned in a quick pivot. In a flash, it disappeared into the forest as if there were a wide path admitting it, when instead to Jack the way seemed to be impenetrable. 

“Damn,” Jack said. “Imagine being able to move like that. He’s all....” His hands tried to describe what he was saying. “He’s all liquid. Water flowing, you know?” 

Ennis rubbed his neck as if massaging it would accomplish something. “Yeah, I know what you mean. The important thing is .... He got away.”

“Yep, he did.”

“This time,” Ennis said, gloomy as the darkest night. “What about next time, huh?” 

Jack gestured toward the forest, that was still alive with color and light that wouldn’t fade for a while. “He’s safe in there.”

“But he won’t stay there. You can’t keep an animal like that in one place.”

“He’s smart,” Jack said quickly. “I don’t think you need to worry. Look at the size of him. He’s got to be four, five years old, and you know not many last that long. He’s been through seasons before.”

“Yeah, well....” The toe of Ennis’s boot, the boot that Jack had got him from San Antonio, dug into the dirt. 

“That buck’s special. Not another one like him.”

Ennis looked up at Jack real quick, squinting at him a second or two as if he was trying to bring him into focus. “You’ve got that right. He’s like you.”

“What?”

Ennis ducked his head, which he did most times he was embarrassed, but he kept talking. “What you said. Moving like water running downhill. Like you.”

Jack closed his eyes and then opened them again, not believing he’d just heard Ennis compare him to a deer. Ennis wasn’t given to sweet talk. “Uh....”

“I already killed one deer this year, remember how I hit it?” Ennis asked with some heat. “He’s sitting in our freezer right now. That one probably moved like you too.” He scuffed at the dirt again. “Listen, Jack would you .... I mean, I ain’t seen -- ”

Another rifle crack interrupted him from even farther away than before. Ennis winced. “Goddamnit! They’re way off the national forest range. Goddamn poachers.”

Jack didn’t care who was hunting or where they were. “What were you saying?”

Ennis transferred his attention from the mountains back to Jack. “I ain’t seen the horses in forever.” He moved a few feet across the yard and then looked over his shoulder toward Jack. “You coming down to them with me or ain’t you? I’ll likely fall on my ass if you don’t.” 

Jack gaped at him. “What? You think you’re well enough to -- ” He clamped his mouth shut. If Ennis wanted to go to the stable, Jack sure as hell wouldn’t stand in his way. 

He went over and took up position next to and a little behind Ennis, the way he’d done before, with one arm around his waist, the other up on his shoulder, supporting too by pressing along Ennis’s side. They started off, and he paid close attention to how Ennis moved over the uneven ground, mostly autumn-brown, dried-out grass but with a lot of uneven dirt patches too. Once, at the very beginning, Ennis’s foot caught on something-or-other and stuttered forward, so it was a good thing Jack was there to prevent a toppling over. 

But then Ennis seemed to catch the hang of walking on the grass, or maybe he got used to leaning on Jack the right way, or it could be that Jack learned the best way to give the support Ennis needed. They kept going, one step after another, moving together steadily away from the house and toward the horses and where the buck had appeared from too. The western sky to the right of them was ablaze, a time of day headed for that tipping point between light and darkness, but still Jack thought that it’d be hard for anyone looking to see that they were two men and not one, they were so close.

Jack couldn’t help but swallow against sudden good feeling. He wondered if Ennis felt it too and didn’t see how he couldn’t, transferring from one body to another. 

The stable building came closer, and behind it, to one side, the vulture-tree, though he couldn’t see any of the birds there right now. 

“The pasture?” Jack asked, ready to steer them in that direction.

“No, the stable. Want to see the pinto, how he’s doing. Floyd told me he put him in for the night.”

When they got there, Jack let Ennis stand on his own and opened the double doors. He propped them open to let the sun shine in and didn’t bother to turn on the sole electric bulb they had in there. 

Ennis stood there, waiting, not moving, until Jack came back to him. Jack put his arm around Ennis’s shoulders this time, fingers curling about his forearm. 

“Okay like this?” 

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Together they stepped from the packed-down dirt onto the old wooden planks. The stable had a high tin roof not in the best of repair, so shafts of light came down at hard angles, real strong, through spots that’d opened up or from seams not quite joined. That and the gentler light from the open door showed the stable complete: the six roomy stalls, three to a side, the middle aisleway that Floyd and Matt kept swept real well, the wheelbarrow tilted on its side down at the far end, with a pitchfork slanted next to it, and the bales of hay piled three high down there too. 

And the smell. Two steps in, they stopped. Next to him, Jack heard Ennis sniff, taking in the horse smell that maybe he’d missed. It tickled Jack’s nostrils too, strong and maybe not-to-everybody’s-liking, but still a natural part of the world. It’d been a part of Ennis’s life since he’d been but a boy, so maybe he truly had missed it. 

“Damn,” Ennis said softly, but it didn’t sound like a curse. More like a blessing, like he was glad to be there. 

There were four horses grazing in the pasture and only one being sheltered here. From the middle box stall to the right there came movement and a warm, horsey snuffling. They walked closer, only a few paces away now, and the pinto’s head came over the half-door. His brown eyes were bright. 

“There he is,” Jack said, and he let go of the hold he had on Ennis.

Ennis took a slow step toward the horse. “Hey,” he said softly, reaching out with one hand, like a blind man searching. “Hey.” 

There was no doubt about it: the horse whickered, his breath blowing out in a gentle greeting, as if he recognized Ennis. He did recognize Ennis, with a bob of his head, welcoming, and then stretched his neck to get in petting range.

As strongly as anybody could, Ennis took those final few steps that brought him to where the pinto waited for him. His hand settled on the horse’s white muzzle. “Oh, darling, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Ennis crooned. “You doing all right? You miss me since I been gone?” 

Jack could hardly hear the words, the sense of what Ennis was saying to this horse that he’d rescued from just this side of the grave, but he could hear and see all the other things that were more important in this reunion that he hadn’t realized was so needed. The sing-song lilt of Ennis’s voice, gentle like Ennis only ever was with his horses, his girls, and now-and-then Jack. And Davey, Jack couldn’t forget how Ennis was with Davey. The stroking of Ennis’s hand against the horse’s nose, fingers and palms exploring like he had to memorize new territory. Ennis’s other hand wrapped around the halter’s cheekstrap, not so much controlling -- because the pinto wasn’t going anywhere -- but another point of contact between man and horse. 

The pinto pushed forward, huffing and quietly snuffling, pushing his nose into Ennis’s hand over and over, seeming to be as glad to see Ennis as Ennis was to see him. 

Jack swallowed against the emotion rising up in him. His Ennis, and Ennis’s horses. Why hadn’t he thought of bringing the horses up to the house for Ennis to see? How come he hadn’t known to make sure these two especially came together? 

Jack cleared his throat. “He’s doing great, Ennis.”

“Yeah.” He sounded choked up. “Looks good.”

“How about I bring him out here, so you can see all of him?”

“Okay,” Ennis said, but it took another little while before he stepped back and Jack could get to the stall door.

The pinto didn’t make a fuss as he went in among the warm horse smell, although Jack had to take hold of his halter to pull him back from Ennis. The horse came away easily, though, and even snuffled in Jack’s hand before Jack snapped a lead rein on.

“Come on, boy,” he said, and like Ennis, he talked in low tones, because for some reason it seemed called for in this gold-drenched place. “Let yourself be seen.” 

Jack clicked to the horse, and even though he knew Ennis had spent almost all his time with the pinto just trying to make sure he lived, the horse responded to that almost eagerly, with some pep to his hoofs clopping. He followed Jack leading him out as if he was already trained up, a fine horse with spirit.

“There,” Jack said, as he clipped the rein to the ring outside the stall and then stepped back next to Ennis. “Take a look. He’s all filled out.”

There was a breathless few seconds of silence as Ennis took in the horse from nose to tail, from withers down to his hooves. The horse’s coat gleamed, the pattern of brown and white so clear, the white patches almost glowing, and he stood still, relaxed, his tail gently swishing.

“Goddamn,” Ennis whispered. He looked at Jack with wide eyes. “Is this my horse?”

“All yours, Ennis. That same sack of bones you brought here in the summer.”

“Can’t believe .... He even looks ready to ride. I thought it’d be months .... ” Abruptly, Ennis headed for the horse. His hands went all over, touching as if the reality of the horse’s obvious health would disappear if he didn’t handle every inch of him. Across the broad back, down each back leg, testing, lifting the near hind leg to inspect the hoof, up the forelegs, then down with open palms across the sloping shoulder. And then finally Ennis just stood there beside the horse, his arms at his sides, his hands still, and leaned his forehead against the side of the pinto’s neck, his face buried in the two-colored coat. His right arm came up once in a long, gentle gliding down the flank, and then returned to his side. Stillness. The horse snuffled. Stillness again.

“Jack? Come on over here.”

Ennis hardly moved as Jack came up next to him, just throwing him a quick glance from his strange, head-on-horse position, and then going back to staring into the pinto’s coat. 

“What?” Jack asked. “You want me to help you to -- ”

“No,” Ennis said slowly. “I need to talk to you.” As if he was a weary soldier, Ennis finally raised his head, turned, and looked at Jack directly, one arm up on the horse’s neck, under his silken white mane. 

Jack, uneasy, rested his fingers on the pinto’s back. “What’s the matter? I thought you’d be happy to see how good he’s -- ”

“It’s not that.” Ennis exhaled a heavy sigh. “Jack, you ever stop to think about what’s going on with our lovemaking since I’ve got home?”

Jack blinked. He sure had, especially since the weekend, but he didn’t know what .... Or ... His heart sank as he searched Ennis’s face, tense and sad. Or maybe he did know.

Ennis stood up a bit taller. He started out with his voice rough and strong, as if he was accusing Jack of something. “You’ve got to know that there’s hardly been lovemaking from my side. I can’t get it up. Hear me? You noticed the other night, right? You must have. And now you want me off with you on this weekend trip .... ” 

He trailed off and slumped, suddenly looking tired of fighting against what he was telling Jack, what Jack hadn’t guessed was going on but should have. 

Ennis leaned more on the arm he had laid up against the pinto. “I figured you’d have more brains than to ask that, seeing how I am.” He shook his head. “You’ll want sex if we go off somewhere, and I ... I can’t blame you cause I want it too. But it’s not happening. Nothing’s there, Jack. Nothing.” 

There was some small voice in Jack’s head that urged him to step back and away, as if being near Ennis would make him catch what every man dreaded, but then his heart-sense kicked in. What stopped him was the misery in Ennis’s eyes and knowing what it must have cost him to say this out loud, Ennis with his fierce pride. This was why Ennis had been hot and cold, pushing forward and pulling back, and why Jack had felt the distance between them. 

Jack searched for something to say that would help. _It’ll be all right_ came right away to his tongue, but he didn’t let out what he’d been saying for weeks. For years, really. _Hell, Ennis, we’ve hardly tried_ didn’t seem right either. He bet Ennis had tried, bet Ennis had been pushed to the brink with trying, had been pushed all the way to actually talking to Jack about this worst nightmare. _It’s my fault_ wanted to come out, and somewhere he felt that was true, cause he’d been so tied up in his feedlot woes and exhausted from the long vigil in Santa Fe. Now that he looked at it, he’d paid a lot more attention to what he needed instead of what his Ennis, in pain and hurting inside by all he’d been put through, needed from the lover who shared his bed. 

But he didn’t say it was his fault, cause who the hell knew? Goddamn, the whole world was one giant mess swirling around, and he was smack in the middle of it. He’d known that for a while, but now here was Ennis with the most personal of miseries that pulled Jack right in next to his man. 

“Fuck,” Jack said, low and heartfelt. He abandoned the pinto and reached out between them with one hand, asking, and Ennis was right there, even combining their fingers and holding on tight, rocking away from his hold on the pinto as if Jack’s hand was enough to keep him standing upright. 

“There’s more,” he said.

“Oh, Christ,” Jack said, fear prickling up his spine. “I been so worried that you haven’t been telling me something. It’s about how your leg’s doing, right? Are you -- ”

“That ain’t it. You know my therapist?”

Jack nodded, still braced to hear the worst.

“I ain’t been telling you the truth there, or at least I been .... Well, anyway. That therapist’s not a woman. He’s a man. His name’s Bill Springfield.” 

Jack didn’t know whether to take Ennis seriously or laugh. Relief spread through him, cause that wasn’t any big thing. Except, looking at Ennis, he could see it was a big thing. 

“Okay,” Jack said. “I guess you might think I’d object, you being with a strange man so much, just you and him.”

“Huh,” Ennis huffed out heavily. “That’s what I told myself and what kept my mouth shut. But it ain’t true. Bill’s married and all, but he is one fine-looking man. Good company too. I guess I really am queer, cause I ... I noticed that and a lot more about him. I dreamed about him last weekend.”

Jack’s fingers tightened against Ennis’s. “That kind of dream? Sexy?”

Released from Ennis’s hold on him, the pinto lifted his head, shook it, and then was still. “Yeah. That kind of dream. It .... ” 

It seemed Ennis searched for a way to say what needed saying, and it was obvious how hard this was for him. Ennis licked his lips and then it came pouring out. “It made clear to me I was on a road that sent me away from you, see? Cause of not telling you, mainly, but cause there’s choices too, being queer, with other people. Soon I’d be thinking of you like a brother, and I ain’t never thought of you in a brotherly way, Jack, not even early up on Brokeback. In that dream I sent you away and kept him, and it wasn’t right. Made me feel even worse than I been feeling cause of ....” He untangled their hands and gestured toward his dick. “You know. So I had to tell you.” 

Then, standing there on his own, no Jack holding him up and no pinto to lean on, Ennis asked, “Jack, what’re we gonna do?” His voice broke on the last word. “Without .... I don’t know how to keep going like this.” 

Every instinct Jack had told him to take Ennis into his arms, but he doubted Ennis wanted that. Instead he stood there and thought, though he had no idea what men who had this problem did when it fell on them. What was the book-smarts on the subject? Maybe somebody else knew, but not him. 

“Well,” he said slowly, drawing out the word. Ennis had stripped himself bare to talk to him about this, and Jack felt like he should do the same, tell what was really in his heart, but it was all questions. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

Ennis looked away toward the open door that showed the yard and the last bits of sunlight. “I thought of leaving. I can’t ask you to let me stay.” He came back to looking at Jack again, full on. “But then I figured maybe you had a say in it.” 

Jack felt all the blood run out of his face, surely leaving him pale as a ghost. After the shitstorm he’d been living through at work, determined not to ask Ennis to leave the valley, to have Ennis talk about leaving on his own about brought him to the ground. 

He grabbed Ennis’s arm. “Damn right I’ve got a say,” Jack said strongly. “You’re not going anywhere. I’d hunt you down, swear to God.”

“But I’m a cripple,” burst out of Ennis. “I ain’t no use to you!”

“Goddamnit, that’s not true!” Jack fought for something good to say, something that would help. “Listen, you’ve been home, what, two weeks? I think -- ”

“Two weeks and one day. A long time, Jack.”

“No, it’s not a long time. I know I’ve been a broken record telling you that you’ve got to be patient, but, hell, it just might be that, you ever consider it? You sure are getting better walking.”

“I know but .... Ah, damn.” Abruptly Ennis turned and broke away, almost bumped into the pinto’s head come around to see what the commotion was about, and shoved the horse to the side. He stumped across the aisle to the far stall, leaned a shoulder against a post, and rubbed his face over and over. 

“He don’t mean nothing to me, you know.”

“What?”

“Bill. The therapist, Springfield. He’s a good guy, but I don’t want you thinking .... “

Jack went over to him, and this time he gave into temptation and grabbed Ennis in an embrace that couldn’t be questioned and couldn’t be resisted. He put his arms around Ennis and pulled them close. Ennis didn’t say no as they came together chest to chest. He grabbed hold of Jack in turn, and suddenly Jack realized this might be the first honest touching they’d done in two weeks.

“You asshole,” Jack whispered into his ear, and then he kissed Ennis there. “I wouldn’t think that about you and your therapist. It’s normal for you to notice him. You’re right, you know. You really are queer.” 

That at least made Ennis move against him, a reluctant and half-hearted laugh rippling through him. “Yeah, no kidding.” 

Ennis pulled back just enough so they were face to face again, with a look that said he really meant what he was saying. His fingers dug into Jack’s shoulders. “It’s not him that’s important. It’s you. I don’t want to do all my talking to him and not you, like in my dream. So now I’ve talked.” He took a breath. “If I can’t get my dick going again, it’s you who’s got to, uh, got to -- ”

“I won’t have to do anything, you’ll see. Let’s just ... Let’s just take some time and think about this, so we can do what’s best. I’m not giving up on you, Ennis. Damn you for thinking I would.”

“I just -- ”

“No. I rescued you up on the mountain, and I’ll go to hell before I let you walk away from me after that. We’ll find a way, Ennis. You hear me? Just give me half a chance.”

Jack wasn’t sure if Ennis would want a kiss right then, but he did, cause Ennis kissed Jack, quick as if he was embarrassed, and then a second time, longer, but then it was over too soon for all that was racing about Jack’s heart. 

*****

That night, Jack didn’t stay on his side of the bed. Once he shut off the light, he rolled over and pressed against his man. Before Ennis could say a word in protest -- so obviously about to be said -- Jack shushed him. 

“Shhhhh. I don’t want to do anything except hold you like this. Okay? Nothing else.”

It didn’t escape his notice that Ennis let himself be held with no complaints, and that after a minute of resistance, his sore, healing body softened and about collapsed in Jack’s arms like warm butter. There was nothing better than burying his nose in Ennis’s fine hair and feeling the rise and fall of his breathing with his own body.

They didn’t say anything after that, and within five minutes the breaths Ennis took lengthened and deepened. He was asleep. But Jack stayed awake, one man alone in the world’s darkness, wrestling with all the day had laid on him. 

Thoughts of Corliss, of Diego, of all that money swirled though his mind, but only for a little while. Mainly what held him astonished was Ennis, talking. He could hardly believe that Ennis, closed-off for so many years, the one who’d held Jack apart and damn near broken his heart and his spirit with his stubbornness that they couldn’t be together, had been the one to open up and speak truth. 

Jack knew all the truths he was keeping to himself, and now he was glad that he hadn’t let any of his feedlot troubles out when they were sitting in the yard talking. He’d almost really asked Ennis to go away with him. That would’ve meant spilling his guts when Ennis was for sure in no shape to take any of that on. 

Such a damn thing to fall on a man. He wished he could .... He needed to come up with something to help. It wasn’t right that Ennis had been going it alone, with Jack hardly knowing a thing. Damn, talk about having his head up his own ass, that had been him, Jack Twist. 

Well, Ennis wasn’t alone in this anymore. Lovemaking was about two, anyway, right? Yeah. Two. 

Up and down he lightly ran his fingers along Ennis’s arm, and he didn’t even stir, so deep asleep he was. Time for Jack to cast his worries over Corliss aside; what the hell could he do about any of it anyway? But right here in his arms was something he could do something about. He’d made some mistakes with Ennis this last little while, he could see each thing he’d done that was wrong, but given the chance he could put them right. 

Jack made plans for healing. 

*****


	17. Let Things Be

_The night when Ennis came to Jack’s door in Amarillo, that night when everything changed and Jack was handed what he’d desperately wanted for more than twenty years, on that night after they made love, Jack stared up at the ceiling, grappling with joy. He kept swallowing down the lump in his throat that was making him want to cry. He didn’t want to wake up Ennis with his sobbing tears, but nothing had prepared him to take this on. How did a man deal with this much happiness? Ennis had come to him. Ennis and him were going to live together._

_Feeling like he was going to jump right out of his skin with the thought -- live together! -- Jack got up and went to stand in the doorway. He turned around before he went downstairs, to look at the shadowy lump on his bed._

_“Never going to leave you again,” he swore under his breath. “We are going to make this work.”_

*****

“Wake up,” Jack whispered in Ennis’s ear. 

It was a special kind of pleasure to experience Ennis coming to slow awareness while Jack was so close, looking. In the course of the night, this first night since Ennis had been truthful with him, they had separated from the embrace they’d taken into sleep and rolled away to opposite sides of the bed to dream their separate dreams. Now, Ennis was on his side facing him, and Jack could watch his eyelids flutter, watch the untroubled face take on awareness, and see Ennis come back to himself. 

Jack reached out in the eerie light of almost-dawn and touched his man’s cheek with his fingertips. A forty-year old face, the everyday skin of an outdoors-hardened man, and the cares of a real man. He shivered, remembering how Ennis had said that he’d thought of leaving.

“Remember Brokeback?” he whispered, clutching at the memory. “Remember how that summer was?” 

Over the years, sometimes it had been hard for him to recall the important parts of what had sprung to life during those days and nights. When Ennis turned him away after his divorce. When he’d gone fishing with Randall the first time. When he’d realized a man could die from heartache and he needed to leave Ennis. 

Now, though, that old feeling of life stirring thrummed through him, somehow born again in the night-time hours. They were going to get back to each other, he was sure of it. He didn’t know how, but it would happen.

If things at work didn’t blow up, that is. He pushed that thought away.

Ennis blinked and pushed his cheek further into the pillow. “I remember you up there. Damn fool kid.”

“Not a kid.”

“Younger than me.”

“Old enough for you.”

“You chased me into the meadow.” 

Memory blossomed like spring. Ennis in that white checked shirt hanging now in their closet with its mate, so young and beautiful he took Jack’s breath away, tossing a pinecone in Jack’s direction, daring him, turning and running away under the trees, toward the meadow, their meadow that had become a second home, high up, almost past the treeline but not quite, a place of fumbling and messy and flawless sex, of shouting and moaning, of long afternoons while the sheep bleated far away and Jack talked about his bastard dad and Ennis talked about his mother’s cooking, and where Ennis carved his place in Jack’s heart.

Jack pushed his fingers into the faded-gold hair behind Ennis’s ear. “I caught you.” Caught Ennis and laid him down on the meadow grass, at the last second gently, his strong, bull-riding hand cradling the back of Ennis’s head so it didn’t land hard. He wanted to do that now, but he knew Ennis had already landed hard these past weeks.

The hint of a smile flitted onto Ennis’s lips and then was gone. “That you did.”

Ennis didn’t look away from him, and it seemed to Jack that he could see all their years in Ennis’s brown eyes. From this moment in their shared bed, back to the day they’d moved to Eagle Nest, further back to the night in Amarillo when he’d been shocked to see the man he’d cut out of his life waiting for him at the dealership, down and down through the spiraling years of hopeless waiting and agonizing decision, all of them in the high reaches of the Wyoming mountains, and then, bursting through, to that one perfect summer on Brokeback Mountain that had shaped every breath either one of them had drawn since then. In those eyes was the Ennis who was nineteen years old, sitting across the fire, telling Jack he hadn’t had the chance to sin yet, and in Jack was the leap of desire to share sin with this quiet, horse-riding boy.

“Remember,” Jack said quietly, again, “that time we got lost in the Gallatins? I about froze my balls off that night.”

Ennis reached for him. He rested his hand along Jack’s waist, and it was right to have it there. He couldn’t imagine a time when Ennis wouldn’t be there, touching him. That time wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t. 

“You and the cold,” Ennis said, his voice now clear of the morning’s huskiness. “Good thing we found our way back to the tent or I’d’ve been kissing a snowman.”

“I was the one who found that trail and led us back.” 

“Yep. You did.” 

“Ennis? Don’t worry about things, okay? I’ve got some ideas.”

Ennis’s eyebrows pinched together, and he sighed. “I told you, Jack, I tried and nothing -- ”

“Shhhh.” Jack put a finger against Ennis’s lips. “I know you tried, but you did it without me. Or at least without me knowing what was going on. It’s got to be the two of us.”

It about killed Jack to see how careful Ennis was with hope. “If you say so.” 

“I don’t mean now. Not even tonight or this weekend, because I suppose we need you to heal some more. We’ve got to find the right time.”

“Yeah, but suppose that time never -- ”

“It will,” Jack said with more confidence than he felt. “If the two of us have made it all these years together, don’t you think we can get us back the way we’re supposed to be?”

He watched while Ennis tried to make himself believe that, and maybe, could be, there was a moment when he did. At any rate, he nodded, and Jack was willing to take that. Then Ennis reached up and shook his shoulder. “Jack Twist, bluebird of happiness, that’s you.”

“Better than being Crabapple of the Year. Listen, I’m taking off work early today.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“No,” Jack insisted. “Really. Corliss should be leaving early on some trip, so the coast should be clear by afternoon.”

“Don’t you do nothing that might get you in trouble.”

Jack hitched up on his elbow and looked down at those clear eyes. “I’ve been in trouble since the minute you shook my hand.”

*****

_In the heat of one Texas summer, on a lazy summer afternoon when Bobby was out in front of the house testing to see if an egg really would fry on the pavement, Jack was laid out in the backyard hammock, looking up at the cloudless blue. His one foot on the ground rocked him, back and forth. He wondered what Ennis was doing that very minute. It was likely cooler in Wyoming, and like always the wind would be blowing. Jack knew Ennis worked a lot on weekends, as the cattle didn’t know Saturday from Tuesday, and Jack could hear Ennis saying that out loud. So maybe Ennis was up on a horse, or harvesting an early hay crop, or maybe he was having a drink in a bar, or could be this weekend he had the girls and was sitting in a cool movie theater watching something girls would like. Jack just didn’t know. Not like he could pick up the phone and ask. Ennis would slam the phone down so fast. No, Jack would never know what Ennis was doing that minute._

*****

Life was flowing Jack’s way this Friday. Corliss left at ten o’clock and said he’d be back late Monday. The sales call Jack had scheduled for three in the afternoon canceled on him, so he didn’t even have to lie that he couldn’t make it. James and his not-so-friendly-anymore face was nowhere to be seen, the cowboys left to measure the grain for the cattle on their own. Andy and Marge minded their own business as Jack made a couple of phone calls, low-voiced, his hand curved over the receiver as he got things set, because whether he knew it or not, Ennis’d had a fine idea about going away for the weekend. Jack had been working way too hard, and Ennis had been worrying himself to a frazzle. They both needed the break. 

Leaving at two -- “So long, have a good weekend, see you later” -- was like playing hooky, or more like the day his father had left for a week to visit Jack’s uncle, leaving him with his silent mother and freedom. That had been the best week of his life before Brokeback. That’s how Jack felt now, suddenly free of what lay behind him, focused only on what was down the road in front of him. Problems be damned, worries could jump out the window, and by God, he was going to have two and a half solid days away from Corliss and his everlasting bullshit.

Jack bounded down the office’s outside stairs and hustled over to the truck. It was early November now, and there’d been a year or two when the only time him and Ennis had been able to get together was that late in the year. It had been cold up in those faraway mountains, but here on the edge of the Sangres the sun was autumn-warm and shining, as if it too remembered the long-ago meadow with gladness. 

He turned the ignition and took off down the road toward Eagle Nest, stopping only for some supplies before he left Cimarron. He’d show Ennis he knew a thing or two about getting off from work early, not the way he’d got off work that had ended in the storm and lightning. This way would erase that, or at least hold weight against it, good against bad. He couldn’t wait to see Ennis’s face when he drove up. Maybe he’d be outside again. 

As soon as Jack turned into the drive, he saw that Ennis wasn’t outside, but an unfamiliar car was. Oh, damn. It was Friday afternoon. Ennis’s therapist was inside. 

His foot on the accelerator eased as he wondered if he should turn around and wait until the car was long gone. There was a turnoff not far north where he could wait under the shade of some leafless trees. He wasn’t sure he wanted to meet this therapist who had caught Ennis’s eye. Then again -- the truck had kept going, and he was more than halfway down the drive to the house -- maybe he needed to meet him. God knew what Ennis would think of it, though. 

Of course Ennis had heard him coming. Ennis hauled open the inside door just as Jack got up to the outside door, and they stood there on opposite sides looking at each other through the screen. Ennis’s eyes flashed. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I told you I’d be early! You want me to go away?”

Ennis glanced over his shoulder to where Jack couldn’t see, though it had to be toward the therapist, this Bill person whose last name he couldn’t remember. Probably the man could hear every word they were saying.

“No,” Ennis said slowly. “I don’t want that. Besides, this is your house too.” His lips pressed together. “Come on in.” 

Ennis went to push open the door, but then he stopped. He sent his eyes down to his feet, unmistakably embarrassed. “Shit,” he said softly. 

“What?” Jack asked, and he tried not to sound suspicious. What was Ennis getting up to in their house with this unknown man, that he didn’t want Jack to see?

“Damn it, Jack.” Ennis shoved the door open and stepped back. Jack was one step over the threshold, ready to meet the therapist and maybe ask some pointed questions, when he stopped dead in his tracks. Ennis was wearing shorts. His eyes swept down those scrawny legs to Ennis’s ankles and then up again to his blushing face. Goddamn, Ennis was wearing shorts!

It took everything Jack had in him not to break out laughing, but there was no force in the world that could stop the little snort that came out of his nose. 

“Not one word!” Ennis barked at him, looking so stern that Jack wanted to snort-laugh again. His lips trembled, for sure. “I gotta wear these for the exercises,” Ennis said fiercely.

“I know, okay, okay,” Jack soothed, and he managed to smooth out his face at the same time. No need to prod that hornet’s nest worse than it was already prodded. “Guess I came at a bad time. But I did tell you.”

“Never thought it would happen.”

“I never thought I’d see your legs like matchsticks. Geez, Ennis, we’ve got to get some meat on your bones.”

“Would you quit that? And don’t just stand there, come all the way in. Guess you want to meet .... ” Ennis gestured roughly behind him.

Jack stepped into the kitchen, the door slapped shut behind him, and he turned to take the measure of the man standing by the table. This Bill was everything Ennis had said on the looks side, plus he stood straight as an athlete. He wasn’t as fine looking as Randall Malone had been. Was. But it was a close thing. He sure filled out his clothes the right way.

He looked at the therapist and the therapist looked at him, and then Jack walked over with his hand outstretched, putting on his work-mask, prepared to hate this man in his kitchen and pretend he didn’t. If he was helping Ennis, Jack would dance a jig with him and say he liked it.

“I’m Jack Twist,” he said. And then he added, in case there was any doubt, “I live here with Ennis.”

Too late, Jack realized that Ennis hadn’t said a word about whether the therapist knew about them, but then their hands slid together without reluctance on either side. 

“My name’s Bill Springfield. Pleased to meet you.”

Springfield had a solid handshake that lasted the exact right time, something Jack noticed about men, along with eyes that held no judgment. Springfield added, “I understand you work at the feedlot over by Cimarron. My cousin Marge is in the office with you.” 

“Is that so?” Jack said, taken aback, but then northern New Mexico was its own small world. He looked again and couldn’t see any resemblance between plain-faced Marge and this good-looker. A sharp dresser too, in brown pleated slacks and an off-white collared shirt that showed off his tanned arms. Jack had told Ennis he was fine with this therapist he’d kept a secret, but now he wasn’t so certain. “Marge works hard,” he managed to come up with. “A nice lady.”

“She thinks highly of you too,” Springfield said. 

Sure, on a snowy day in July. “Yeah, well ....” Jack shrugged. He supposed he should back off and leave Ennis to finish whatever he was doing with this Springfield guy, but he didn’t want to. He’d always hoped Ennis would eventually understand the basic attraction between men, why he’d gone off with Randall and Gary and whoever he picked up in between, and he’d angrily resented Ennis’s judgment of him for heading to Mexico during the long months of no-Ennis-at-all. But now, confronted with Ennis’s dream-man? Too good-looking by half. “Are you going to be much longer here?” Jack asked.

“No, we’re almost finished with our session for the day. I was about to give Mr. Del Mar a progress assessment.”

Now he had a reason to stay instead of just not liking Ennis -- wearing shorts -- in the same room with Springfield. If this progress report was bad news .... Well, it was about time he got back in Ennis’s life all ways, and he could maybe help.

Ennis finally came up to the table too, limping the smallest bit. 

“You okay if I stay for that?” Jack asked, inviting himself. 

Ennis grunted as he sat down in his regular chair. “You’d likely listen in anyway if I said no.” 

“If you don’t want -- ”

“It’s better having you here now than if you’d come earlier, seeing me make a dumbass of myself by swinging my leg and leaning against walls.”

“Then you’re giving permission for Mr. Twist to be here?” the therapist asked.

Ennis looked up at Springfield. He bit his lip, and Jack remembered how hard it’d been when Betty Jo had first barged into their kitchen, and how uncomfortable Ennis had been with Morgan in the house, each of them knowing Jack and Ennis’s truth. But Springfield had been coming here a while. 

Ennis said, “You know his name’s on that form of yours.” 

“Yes,” Springfield said in that soft voice of his. “I do know.”

“And he’s here.” Ennis heaved in a heavy breath. “What’s the sense of pretending that’s not so?” He nodded at the third chair. Springfield had claimed Jack’s place with papers spread on the table. “Jack, sit down.”

Jack about fell into the seat, he was that shocked by it all. Ennis was the grand champion of pretending. Or at least he used to be.

Then he got up, shuffled out of his jacket, draped it on the back of the chair, and sat down again, all with his head whirling. Guess this Springfield was a miracle worker, to get Ennis comfortable like this. Or maybe it’d been the stay in the hospital when he’d had no choice of the nurses knowing, or could it be Floyd being a friend, or ....

Jack set his hat on the corner of the table, claiming almost as much space as what Springfield had. He guessed they’d come a long way from when Ennis had thought he could hide for years in the valley. 

He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Then he thought maybe that looked too unfriendly, and he unfolded them. Ennis flicked him a glance and settled his gaze on Springfield. “So, what you gonna tell me?” 

The therapist focused on Ennis, which was fine with Jack. “It’s good news, in case you were wondering,” he said as he picked up a form that was written all over in blue ink. “You’ve had seven therapy sessions so far, and I know you had your doubts from the beginning that you’d regain mobility.”

“There’s no sense living if I can’t walk,” Ennis said bluntly.

Springfield smiled at him, and it was clear as day why Ennis had noticed him. Springfield gave off the air of being a man’s man, fit enough to climb mountains, but here was something a lot softer, a sweetness that Lureen had loved about Jack, too, in the early years of their marriage. 

“It appears to me,” Springfield said, still with that soft smile, “that you walked over to the door just now and opened it with no problems. You’re making excellent progress, Mr. Del Mar.” 

Ennis looked like he didn’t quite believe it. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely. That first week was difficult, but it often is as a patient gets re-acquainted with his body. You experienced considerable trauma with the burns and the horse falling on you. It’s not something you get over in a day or two. But as I expected, the last few sessions have shown considerable improvement.”

“I don’t know -- ” Ennis began.

“I don’t know if Ennis has noticed that,” Jack put in. He grabbed the rails of his chair and hitched it forward until he was practically belly-pressed to the table. “But I have.”

Springfield said, “Sometimes it’s helpful to have the perspective of somebody who isn’t struggling with the therapy exercises.”

“I have too noticed I’m walking better,” Ennis growled. “You take me for an idiot? The thing is, will I walk good enough? All the way to where I used to be?”

Springfield tapped the table with a pen. “In my judgment, there is an excellent chance you will recover fully, so that you won’t even notice you once had problems. But only if you continue with the therapy and of course the exercises you’ve been doing on the off days.”

Still Ennis was skeptical, though Jack felt about ready to burst with the news. “It’s been two weeks already,” Ennis said, arguing against himself. “I don’t see how you can say -- ”

“Mr. Del Mar,” Springfield said. “In another two weeks, I expect you’ll be ....” He stopped, seeming to cast around for a good example. “I think you’ll be riding your horses by then.” 

Ennis sat back with a soft thud. Jack said, “I knew it!” and slapped his palm flat on the table. Ennis had a look that said the sun would too shine again. It had been a long time since he’d seen Ennis happy, the tense muscles of his face relaxed at last.

“Riding? Really?” Ennis didn’t get the words all the way out without a hitch to his deep voice.

“Yes, I think so.”

Jack reached across the table but didn’t try to touch. “You can start your training again!”

“I can’t guarantee any of this, you understand. I wouldn’t be this specific with most patients, but you .... Yes, riding. Your horses will be happy to see you, I think.”

Ennis passed one of his big hands over his face. “Me too. I mean, yeah, that’d be real good. You think I can do that so soon?” 

“Yes, I do, and -- ”

“And before that I can do the stablework?”

“You told me you’d been down to the stable once already. Why not again? Do what you can do, and I think you’ll find that’s more every day.”

“Yeah, but Jack helped me on that walk.” 

“Not all that much, not really,” Jack said. “Besides, I can help again until you can go down there on your own.” 

“Yeah, but your work -- ”

“The hell with my work. We’ll find a way.”

“That would be helpful,” Springfield said. 

“What about my work at the ranch?” Ennis asked. “When can I go back?”

“Whoa, Mr. Del Mar. I’ve already pushed your prognosis further than I should have. Let’s wait and see.”

“But if he can ride,” Jack argued, “there’s no reason he can’t go back to work.”

“Once Mr. Del Mar gets his strength back,” Springfield conceded. “When that happens, he can start with a few hours every other day and go on from there.”

“In two weeks, you said,” Ennis pressed him. 

The therapist held up both hands in surrender. “Let’s just say you’re well on your road to recovery.”

Ennis blinked fast a few times and then turned to look at Jack, not seeming to care that Springfield was there. They matched gazes for a couple of seconds or more, Jack’s heart swelling, and Jack felt that him coming home at this time was maybe as important as Ennis talking to him the night before, that they got to share these moments. 

It was Springfield who broke the silence. “We’ll work on getting back your strength and stamina over the next two weeks, and then I’ll be able to set you free.” Springfield selected a thin booklet and held it out. “Now let’s talk about our plan going forward.” 

He and Ennis bent their heads together for a while, turning pages and talking about repetitions, but Jack didn’t listen. Now he really got it, why Springfield had been in that dream. Springfield was expert at what he did, knowing exactly how to help, figuring Ennis’s mood and handing him what he needed when he needed it. Springfield had a certainty to him, as if he knew exactly what his space in the world was and he claimed it with no fuss. 

Ennis was still swimming around trying to find that certainty, and Jack had fought for it hard all his life and wasn’t so sure he had it yet. That kind of comfort in his own skin that Bill Springfield had, hell, it would attract the pope himself. 

Springfield was stuffing his papers in his case now. “Mr. Twist, it’s been good to meet you. I’ve got another patient in half an hour, so I have to leave now.” 

Jack scrambled to his feet. “I’ll walk you out. Ennis, be right back.”

Jack left Ennis sitting where he was, followed Springfield outside into the cooling autumn air, and watched as he put his case into the back seat. 

“Thanks for all you’re doing for Ennis,” he said as Springfield swung around to face him again.

“No problem,” Springfield said. “He is one determined man.”

“And you think he’ll be all right.”

“That’s my professional opinion, yes, and I could tell he needed to hear it.”

“You’ve got that right,” Jack said. “Listen, about Marge at the office. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let on to her about our living arrangements.”

Springfield dipped his head in agreement. “I won’t. But she’s a good-hearted woman, you know.”

Yeah, Jack supposed he did know that, though he hadn’t paid all that much attention. “My boss won’t take it kindly if he was to know how I lived.”

“I understand the need for discretion. It’s really part of my job description. Good-bye, Mr. Twist.”

They shook hands, and Jack watched Bill Springfield, dream-man and therapist, drive away into the last hour of the afternoon. When he was nothing but a speck, Jack stuck his hands into his back pockets and stood there for a while, without a jacket on, feeling the breeze through his button-down shirt, hearing the valley’s silence, and knowing that Ennis was behind him in the kitchen, waiting. But he needed this moment.

The therapist, who Jack trusted now like he trusted rocks to be hard and grass to be soft, thought Ennis would recover in full. Get all the way back to himself. And Ennis believed him, that was the important part. Two weeks from now, Ennis up on a horse, Ennis working Dawn in the pasture, or maybe just as big a marvel, up on the nameless pinto. Jack shook his head as pressure that he’d been holding in for days, for weeks, since the storm rolled over the mountains, released in his chest, and he smiled. 

A return to life as they knew it ... if Ennis could get over whatever it was that was keeping him bottled up, bedroom-wise. The thought of them getting back to normal, to real lovemaking and Ennis walking strong, that made Jack go weak in the knees. He guessed he needed that almost as much as Ennis did, to get him past the bad days with Corliss, so home was a refuge and not a challenge. At least now Ennis could concentrate on making that happen without worrying about the walking part. Hadn’t Jack known somewhere deep inside when he woke up this morning that good things would happen? 

Jack straightened, slapped his hand against his thigh, and whooped out loud, loud enough so that a couple of doves pecking at the dry-brown remnants of their grass rose up in a startled flurry. “Ennis!” he hollered as he turned back toward the house.

“I’m right here, you idiot,” Ennis said from behind the screen. “You’re gonna scare the horses.”

Jack advanced like a lion to the door and yanked it open. “Come on out here!” He hauled Ennis over the threshold, grabbed him around the waist, and pulled him so hard and so close that Ennis’s toes left the ground. “You’re going to be okay!” Jack near-shouted. 

“Hey, hey! Put me down!”

Jack did, but Ennis stayed where he was and hugged him, there in the side yard with the equipment scattered around, and Jack hugged him back, cheek against cheek, his arms full. If the sky hadn’t already been blue, it would have turned blue because of the feeling in Jack’s chest. 

“You’re going to be all right,” Jack said again, almost a whisper. 

“Maybe,” said his cautious man, but when Jack pulled back and looked, there was the blue sky in Ennis’s eyes, so they were matched. 

“How about we celebrate by going away for the weekend?” Jack asked.

*****

_Goddamn it, Jack thought as he drove home that sweltering summer day, there has to be a better way to make a living than working for L.D. Newsome, asshole-supreme. He’d been slapped on the back and introduced as “Lureen’s cowboy,” for less than a year now, but already he felt about to explode into a million pieces of scream._

_“Hey, Rodeo,” L.D. had said to him that afternoon with his I’m-the-boss-and-you’re-stupid attitude, “think you can manage taking Mr. Walker’s truck round back?” In front of Tim Walker, big spender, who smirked in his good-old-boy way._

_“Why, of course, L.D.” Jack had wanted to say, “soon as I learn to drive. And where exactly is round back? Would you show me the way?”_

_But he didn’t say that. Like he’d done every day since he’d married Lureen and got this job -- answer to his prayers, he’d have a steady income, he’d have a wife and family, nobody to look crosswise at him, no more broken bones and aching joints from the bulls, he’d get to eat regular every day -- Jack shoved his pride to the side and said, “Sure thing.”_

_Now Jack swung the wheel of his brand new pick-up -- can’t have Lureen’s new husband driving a broken down hunk of junk, no offense, Rodeo -- onto the street where he lived. Six o’clock, and dinner probably wasn’t on the table. Probably Bobby was screaming his lungs out and Lureen’s eyes were red from crying even worse than the baby. The house would be a mess, and Faye would knock on the door in ten minutes, her eyes condemning him for knocking up her only child, the one unforgivable sin always to be papered over with sad, gentle smiles._

_In front of the house, Jack brought the truck to a stop with a heavy foot on the brake, and then he sat there._

_What was he going to do? A man could die all of a sudden from being hit by a bus, or he could die by being stuck by a hundred pinpricks a day and bleeding out slow as could be. He’d end up dead both ways._

_Could he give up this new life? How could he give it up, Lureen so pretty and Bobby his flesh and blood he’d never thought would be? The new truck, the clothes, the refrigerator filled with food and beer?_

_Sighing, Jack got out and trudged down to the sidewalk to get the mail from the curbside mailbox._

_And there it was. A postcard from Ennis. “You bet.”_

_Salvation._

*****

Ennis stiffened in his arms, his mood turning in an instant. Jack could feel it. “No. No way.” Ennis turned away and walked across the grass toward the forest. “No going away for the weekend.” 

“Oh, come on.” Jack told his back. “Why not?”

“What’s got into your head? Are you crazy?”

Jack sighed as an uncomfortable itch made its way down his spine. He didn’t much like it when Ennis called him that. Over twenty plus years, it’d gotten old. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with going away. It’s Friday afternoon, and for once I don’t have to go into work tomorrow. I think we should -- ”

Ennis stopped close to a ride-on lawn mower that had seen better days. “You think we’re made of money?” he said over his shoulder.

“You know we’re doing okay.”

Ennis huffed, his shoulders going up and down. “Says you.”

“Ennis, come on. Don’t fight me on this. We just got great news, and I’m happy. Let’s not -- ”

Ennis waved in the vague direction of Taos. “Where do you want to go? There’s no place around here fit for that sort of thing.” 

Jack came up next to him, determined to get his way, not willing to see his plan evaporate in the face of Ennis’s instinct to stay hidden. He could get stubborn too. 

“New York,” he said firmly. “I thought it’s about time we saw it. I already have the plane tickets.”

Ennis looked at him in flat-out amazement. “You’re kidding.”

Jack nudged him in the side. “Of course I’m kidding, dumbass. We’d spend half our time traveling. We’re going to Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s closer. Gambling, shows ....”

Ennis’s eyes narrowed. “You are bull-shitting me, and you will burn in hell before you get me either of those places.” 

“Then how about we stay closer to home? Remember that cabin we stayed at when we first came here, looking for someplace to live that was near your job?”

It took a couple seconds, but Ennis’s head came up. He nodded. “Yeah, I remember that. Up by Red River. That’s when you got hired by the feedlot.”

Jack didn’t want to think about anything in Cimarron; that was what this was all about. He launched into his sales pitch. “It has the big porches, front and back, it’s out in the middle of nowhere, has a grill, that big fireplace we never did get lit, the Jacuzzi .... Doesn’t that sound good? We could get away from it all and relax.” He lightly rested his hand on Ennis’s arm. “We deserve that, if only to celebrate your news.”

“I don’t know.” 

“I’ve already got it reserved through Monday morning.”

“You could cancel it.”

“I could, but why should I?”

Ennis sighed long and loud, making it clear with the exhale what he thought of the whole idea. He shrugged Jack’s hand off. “You’re thinking we can solve my bedroom problems there, aren’t you? It won’t work, Jack. I already told you more’n once that -- ”

“And I told you this morning, not tonight and not this weekend.”

“Yeah, I remember, but you said the right time. So now you’ll have me looking all around for the right time every minute, thinking it’s around the corner, and ..... Forget it. Let’s stay home.”

Jack’s heart dropped a little more. “What, because you think -- ”

“I know you, Jack. You never could leave well enough alone.”

“But things aren’t well enough, and you told me so yourself last night. Besides, it’s not .... ” Jack scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to grab hold of his whirling, disappointed thoughts, that maybe he wouldn’t be able to convince Ennis of this after all. “Listen, what if I -- ”

“You want to go off someplace and spend money? Go ahead. But I’m not some experiment for you to work over. Come back when you got it out of your system.”

Not for the first time in his life, Jack had the impulse to shake Ennis into some sense, he was that frustrated. “That’s not it, damn it! Not everything’s about you, you chuckle-headed hedgehog!” Now it was his turn to walk away, his head down and his hands rubbing at his temples.

“Oh, yeah?” came Ennis’s voice behind him. “What’s it about then, if it’s not you wanting to prove how I can’t .... ”

Jack stood stock still as Ennis trailed off. He wondered why they were fighting when things had gone so well inside with the therapist. 

“I ... I just wanted to get away,” Jack said. He turned around to make his words plain. “Like I said yesterday, I need a break, away from the feedlot.”

Ennis looked at him like he had two heads, like he couldn’t imagine any man wanting to remove himself from his job, not when he was straining at the leash to get back to the ranch.

Jack pointed to his own chest. “This is for me, not you. Get it?”

Ennis frowned. “Things getting worse at the feedlot, then?”

Jack threw up his hands. “They don’t have to get worse, they’re bad enough as it is. I’ll get worn down to nothing if things get any worse. Come on, Ennis, say you’ll go away with me.”

Ennis gnawed on a thumbnail and seemed to consider things. “You sure you won’t, you know ....” He gestured with his other hand down toward his dick, then straightened. “And you’re sure you need to go off somewhere? Cause if it was up to me, we’d -- ”

Jack didn’t feel so sun-in-the-sky anymore. He felt worn out. Even his bones felt tired. “Have you even noticed the hours I’m keeping?”

“Well, yeah, but -- ”

“How I’m up earlier than usual in the morning? How I get home way past quitting time? You were already asleep that one night! How I barely saw you last weekend?”

“Yeah, but -- ”

“I know you’ve worked long hours on your jobs before, and I have too, but it’s not only the sixty hours a week Corliss has me going. It’s ... it’s .... ” It was all the things he couldn’t say. “Damn the man. Damn him and damn James too! Hell, damn all feedlots!”

“I know, remember I said about the way the horses were -- ”

Jack talked over him. “All those cattle bunched together, surrounded by their own stink, and who wants to work where it smells like that all day?” He stood there suddenly mad as could be because of how awful the cattle smelled, and the sharp diesel of the trucks that came to pick them up, and the persistent, annoying roar of the rescued lions and tigers caged in the preserve over the hill. He’d never let himself think of any of that, because he’d been so grateful to find a job that suited him where jobs for a man like him were scarce, but he did now.

“Fuck,” he said, low and heartfelt, wanting to slug somebody.

He walked over to where a branch had fallen from one of their forest trees and kicked it like he meant it. The dry leaves rustled and bits of them flew up into the air, but there was a stubborn one that stayed where it was, clinging to the wood. He squatted and ripped it off. The crunch of it in his fist satisfied something. How come things couldn’t go his way? 

“You wonder if things have gotten worse? You want worse than how they are already? I sure don’t. Corliss is on my ass day in and day out.”

“You said that before. He’s a hell of a boss.”

“Fuck Corliss. He’s throwing everything but the kitchen sink at me, but I’m not an accountant and I never will be, and I didn’t sign up to be his personal driver! I’ve about had it. Goddamned had it, you hear me?”

There wasn’t anything else to say. Bleakly, Jack wondered how his half-baked thoughts of using the cabin to help Ennis had turned somehow into his only hope of keeping himself together. He hadn’t known he’d been pushed all the way to the brink, had thought there was plenty of strength left in him to keep going and going and giving .... But there wasn’t. 

“I hear you, Bud.”

Jack startled as he felt Ennis’s hand on his shoulder, and he glanced up at him, squinting against the lowering sun. 

“Ennis, I really need to get away.” 

“Okay,” Ennis said, and the hard, fearful man who’d told him to go off on his own had disappeared.

Jack stood up. “Okay? Really?”

“Yeah.” Ennis swallowed. “Guess this is something we should do. So let’s go.”

*****

_On the third day of their trip to the Wind River Mountains, when they’d pitched their tent about as far from the trailhead as they ever did, a full day’s ride, cause Jack had said he felt like going deep into the forest and as high as they could go that week, Jack started to cough as they were coming back to camp on their horses._

_He coughed and looked glassy-eyed, and even Ennis riding behind him knew he was burning with fever. Ennis wasn’t any nurse, and it’d been years since he’d tended to his girls when they were sick. He didn’t know what to do to help. Part of him was spitting mad that Jack was about to spoil their week together. Didn’t he know how Ennis grabbed hold of their time and used it to get him through the long months beforehand? Didn’t he know that Ennis had a whole head full of memories of their days and nights side-by-side, there to prove to him that he had a life? Didn’t Jack know that he needed Jack to be well so they could have sex morning and evening and sometimes in the afternoon, and didn’t he know of Ennis’s panic now as he saw Jack brought so low?_

_Jack couldn’t even walk to the tent after he dismounted, he was that weak, so Ennis put his arm around him, said, “Lean on me,” and led him forward. The tent was stuffy with stale air, so he pushed back the flap as they went through it, and then he laid Jack down on his bedroll._

_“It’s hot” Jack said, and he hid under his arm._

_“Let’s get you out of your jacket, then.”_

_“I’m sorry I’m sick.”_

_“You hush. Here, lift up.”_

_Ennis sat next to Jack for hours, giving him water through the coughing fits and pounding him on the back sometimes, cause that’s what you were supposed to do, right? As night fell, he ate, though Jack didn’t want any. He told Jack about how he’d seen hundreds of cows push newborn calves out into the world, and about when Junior was born and he held her for the first time, and then he told how he’d rushed Jenny to the emergency room when she turned blue, and he’d been so worried._

_“Don’t you turn blue,” he joked. “I wouldn’t be able to see it unless we lit the lantern.”_

_It was dark in the tent, clouds overhead, no moon anyway, no stars, nothing but black around them. He didn’t sleep so well, jerking awake what seemed like ten times an hour, listening for Jack’s breathing._

_Over the next couple days, he helped Jack get outside the tent to piss, fed him when he’d eat, and stayed close, since there wasn’t anything much else to do except care for the horses. His butt got sore from sitting cross-legged in the tent so long. The fever broke on their next to last morning, and Jack slept like a rock that couldn’t be moved all through that day._

_He woke before the sun set with that old Jack-sparkle in his eye. Ennis leaned down and kissed him before he could say anything, and ten minutes later they were rolling around on the bedroll._

_Afterward, Ennis said, “Glad you’re feeling better.”_

_“Me too,” Jack told him._

_“You about ruined the week, though.”_

_“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!”_

_They had sex again that night, and then again in the morning, and they said good-bye at the trailhead the way they always did, with no big fuss made. Except there was a big fuss going on inside Ennis where nobody ever went but him. He’d done the right thing by Jack. A man could feel good about that._

*****

Ennis hardly knew what to think as Jack drove the Ford toward the cabin they’d stayed at seven months before. When he’d woke up this morning, he’d had no more idea of going off on some vacation than he’d had of blasting off to the moon. He’d had no thought Bill would hit him with this evaluation thing. And he sure hadn’t imagined that Bill and Jack would be shaking hands.

It was a lot for a man to take in all at one time. 

He shook his head and did his best not to squirm like some kid. Jack and Bill, holy hell, and if only he hadn’t had that dream, he wouldn’t feel guilty, even though he’d made it clear last night to Jack where he stood. He’d felt it needed to be said. With the therapist in the house, he’d watched Jack real close to see how he was taking it, but things had gone okay. Jack had even followed Bill outside to see him off, and it’d seemed they’d talked reasonable. 

Still. If he had his way, Jack and Bill would never be in the same room at the same time again. 

He looked out the window as the northern Moreno Valley passed by. It started out wide, wooded only here and there, but soon enough pine trees and rocky outcrops took the place of the open spaces where horses and cattle might graze, and the Sangres came in, close and friendly. Here was Huggins Road going east, where Floyd lived, then Maudie’s Restaurant, home of the best chicken fried steak sandwich, with an isolated ranch house snuggled up against the foothills not much past that, and then a sign pointing north toward Red River twenty-two miles away. They wouldn’t go that far, as it wouldn’t take even half an hour to reach the cabin. It seemed strange, that a place to get away from it all was so close. 

It was hard for him to understand why they were headed out this way. Jack really had wanted to go there. He’d sounded kinda desperate. It’d taken Ennis some time to hear that note in Jack’s voice and to get the message that this trip was important. Why, he didn’t know, but Jack was real aggravated with work, that was clear. What was going on that was so much worse than what Jack had put up with when he worked in Childress for L.D.? Jack had complained long and hard over that man, but he’d never sounded this way.

Ennis scratched over his ear. Well, he’d finally heard what Jack was saying, and he guessed it was the neediness in Jack’s voice that had swayed him past his reluctance to go where he feared Jack would expect something to happen between them. Even though he wanted it to happen, so bad, still he feared the trying for it. Jack had sworn up and down before he’d tossed their stuff into the truckbed that he wouldn’t press. This wasn’t the time, he’d said, this was only for them to rest and relax and have some quiet hours. 

He supposed he had to trust Jack on that, except it was kinda crazy to think their house had been anything but quiet, with all his long hours alone stuck inside. But now he thought of it, there’d been so much noise going on in his head. Maybe this was a good thing for him too. Could be, though it required a wrench in his thinking. Him and vacations didn’t belong in the same sentence, he’d always figured, not counting Jack-time as a vacation but something so necessary to him he’d given up jobs for it. But it seemed to him now that he needed to get away from how ... how desperate he’d been feeling. Huh. He was like Jack that way, now he came to think of it, them mirror reflections of each other. So, yeah, a vacation, no matter how strange that sounded or how he felt inside that he didn’t deserve it. 

Ennis looked over at Jack driving, and Jack turned and smiled at him. He never had been able to resist a Jack-smile, had he? 

Well, all right. Ennis let himself smile back at Jack, even though he didn’t understand, but he could use the weekend to figure it all out. He turned back to looking at the passing scenery. They were well into the upper valley now, where oaks and aspens and mainly pines spread out on the rolling shoulders of the mountains as if the whole world was a forest. It seemed the road and their little pick-up on it were the only specks of something-different for a thousand miles around. It had that feel to it, even though Ennis knew full well Red River was a spit away and the cabin closer, even if hidden. A spectacular jut of rock almost touched the road, topped by a single leafless oak tree, its roots holding on to life but looking like it might tumble onto the asphalt any minute. 

This was the first time he’d gone driving since he’d come home from St. Vincent’s. He remembered using every bit of energy he had to sit upright next to Jack as the miles had passed, and now here he was, being told he’d be practically good as new soon. Plus he had plenty of get-up-and-go, even though he’d had a therapy session that afternoon. Funny how the days had passed quick and slow at the same time.

“You okay over there?” Jack asked.

“No, I’m starving since it’s been a whole twenty minutes since we left.”

“Hardee har har. You’re a comedian.”

Ennis had a sudden thought. “You didn’t bring any of those damn casseroles, did you?”

Jack grinned, free and easy, and it was a sight to see. “No sir. I bought four T-bone steaks with the fixings before I left Cimarron, so you’re going to have to eat two steak dinners in a row. I brought burgers for Sunday night.”

Ennis’s mouth flooded; it was getting close to dinner-time and steak would be the best thing. Even so, he said, “Twist, you’ve got no imagination.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve got steaks.”

“I’ll do the grilling.”

“That’s too much standing for you. I’ll do it.”

“How about you do tonight, and I’ll do tomorrow. Don’t miss the turnoff here.” 

“It’s another half a mile or so.”

The narrow dirt road emerged from the trees ten seconds later, and Ennis pointed that out as Jack took the turn to the left. “I always did have a better sense of distance than you.”

“You don’t know distance until you’ve driven over nine hundred miles three times a year,” Jack said. “Six times a year, counting the way back.” 

Ennis said that was a different case.

After only a hundred yards or so, route 38 through the valley was a distant memory as the truck jostled and jerked over dried-mud ruts, reduced to hardly going faster than a man could walk. Ennis rolled down his window all the way and stuck out his hand, the better to brush against the trailing branches of bushes and occasionally the trunks of trees, they were that hemmed in by the forest. 

“It’s a wonder we found this, the first time,” he said.

Jack nodded and kept his eyes on the road. A jackrabbit darted across it and disappeared in the underbrush. 

Up the road started to go, followed by two switchbacks, so that they were above the tops of some of the trees as they climbed. Then the grade straightened. Another sharp turn and,  
“Here we are,” Jack said as he brought the truck to a stop in front of the cabin. 

Ennis didn’t move as he studied the place; nestled in an unexpected broad clearing, it looked about the way it had before, a true log cabin even if it did have fancy fixings inside. Five worn wooden steps led up to the broad front porch, which offered a spectacular view clear across the valley to the mountains on the east side. There was a wide sitting-swing for two his girls would have liked, hanging from the porch roof. The front part of the house was up on stilts with the rest of it set into the gently sloping land. The covered back porch, he remembered, offered some easy-sitting wooden chairs and a cheap grill in the corner. The porch led straight out without any steps to a sparsely wooded area that got more crowded the further back it went until it was all forest, as if the trees were crowding in to see what was going on where the humans lived, but they were scared, and only the bravest ones inched forward.

The last sound of the engine ticked away, and then Ennis heard such a familiar sound: the whispering of the wind through the trees, coming in this case from overhead, up on the slopes of the mountains that he couldn’t see since they were truly on the mountain here. Where they were, everything was still. There was only a slight chill to the air that touched his cheeks. It was a fine autumn late afternoon, and his job was to enjoy it without letting his own concerns bother him. Or worry about what was going on with Jack that he needed to spend their hard-earned money on a weekend in the woods not half an hour from their own house. Sometimes Jack believed in miracles.

Next to him, Jack gave a huge sigh that didn’t sound sad. “Ennis?” 

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for this.” 

Ennis looked his way again. There was something in him that wanted to say thanks to Jack in return, despite his doubts that these days would do much of anything for either one of them. Instead, he said, “If you think I’m unloading our stuff, you can think again. Come on, Twist, get going.”

*****

_Eventually, Ennis came to think of the night spent in Jack’s truck as their first place together._

_Ennis had slept rough more’n once in his nineteen-year-old life, but he didn’t like it, and he’d do a lot to try to find a safe place to lay his head. Aguirre had said to meet him with the sheep the next day, so where to go for the night when he was broke? This Jack Twist who he’d just met -- strange looking fella, eyes like a girl’s, talked like a magpie, but he’d paid for a drink -- he’d said you can sleep with me in my truck. He’d looked kinda funny when he’d said it, like he was worried about the prospect, but Ennis had no other alternative, so of course he said that would do._

_Jack’s truck was a piece of shit, but Ennis kept his thoughts to himself. He pissed behind an abandoned feed store on the edge of town and hauled himself into the passenger seat. The cushions, what little cushions there were, squeaked. Jack settled himself next door behind the wheel._

_Ennis took some time getting comfortable leaning his head against the window. He might have a hard time sleeping while he was sitting up, but they had nothing to cushion the rusted-out flatbed with. He was tired though, with all the talking and listening._

_“Well,” Jack said, after only a few minutes had passed._

_Ennis had nothing to say to Jack in return._

_“You want a drink?” Jack offered. “Of water, I mean. I got some here.”_

_He fished under the seat and came up with an old tomato juice bottle. Ennis sipped from it and then handed it back._

_Some time later Jack woke him up with a quiet curse. Ennis pried open one eye to see Jack with his arms around himself, shivering real obvious._

_“You cold?” he asked._

_“Goddamn right I’m cold. Where the hell is summer? It’s supposed to be warm this close to summer!”_

_“You got a coat?” Ennis asked._

_“Yeah,” Jack said. “In the truckbed.”_

_“Well, go get it, dumbass.”_

_Jack did, with a lot of commotion and more cursing. When he got back he threw Ennis’s jacket at him._

_“Here. Thought you could use this.”_

_“I’m not cold.”_

_“Then use it to wipe your ass!” Jack said, not pleased._

_Ennis shrugged and settled down to sleep some more._

_The sound of the train coming through town woke him the next time, when the stars were shining so sharp in the sky they hurt his eyes. He turned his head away, but he could still hear the steady clack clack of the wheels over the rails._

_“That’s the most lonely sound there can be,” Jack said in a quiet voice. He sounded younger than he was, like a scared kid, and Ennis felt bad for him, stuck out here in the wide world, reduced to taking a crap job herding sheep._

_“Oh yeah?” Ennis said, as soft as a mouse._

_“Yeah. People get on trains and go somewhere. I ain’t going nowhere.”_

_“Except up on the mountain. Where it’s gonna be cold.”_

_“Fuck you, Ennis Del Mar.”_

_But Ennis knew he didn’t mean it, as quiet as he said it._

_Until he learned maybe Jack did mean it, but that was later._

*****

“Hey, that wasn’t here before, was it?” Jack said when they managed to get the key to work and they walked through the door. He dropped their two bags onto the polished plank floor and went over to a little, portable TV. It was set up on a bare metal stand next to the stone fireplace and hearth that took up most of one wall.

“Nope, it wasn’t,” Ennis said. “I guess that makes you happy.” 

“Well, maybe,” Jack said, looking over his shoulder. He put the remote back on top of the TV. “It’s only a fifteen incher. Probably has crap reception. See? No special antenna.” He shrugged. “I’ll go get the food.”

Ennis took charge of shoving stuff in the refrigerator, but before that he pulled out two of the steaks and handed them off to Jack with orders to fire up the grill. Jack grabbed lighter fluid and a bag of charcoal sitting by the door to the back porch and went willingly. Through the two windows showing the small clearing out back, Ennis could see him pulling the grill down onto the grass, setting things up, and after a couple of minutes, he heard whistling. Jack whistled like he sang, with a lot of enthusiasm but not much tunefulness. Ennis didn’t mind, especially if Jack was relaxing enough to do that. He doubted Corliss heard much whistling at work. 

Once the food bag was empty, Ennis tried not to limp as he went into the bathroom, the only room in the cabin that was closed off, cause the rest was one big space. He eyed the square bathtub as he pissed, where he remembered how him and Jack had enjoyed themselves before. It was more than big enough for two and they’d proved it. More’n once. Those had been good times. 

He zipped up and wondered if the water jets against his leg would help. Probably would. Except there couldn’t be any trying-to-fool-around there this time. Promises and all. There was no way Ennis was staying out of that tub, though.

When he came out of the bathroom, the sight of the bed, set up on a platform in a way he’d never encountered anywhere else, carried its own memories. Seemed everywhere he looked made him recall how him and Jack had made love all over this place that last time, carried away with how everything was working out for them so fine, each of them with jobs, liking the valley, and most of all, the very first time they’d spent weeks and weeks together and not barely short days. They’d celebrated one whole month together in this cabin. The only problem was, things weren’t working now for him like they’d been back then. Weren’t working for them together, not just him. Things were different. 

Ennis didn’t want to look at the bed anymore, so he found escape by going over to one of the back windows to check on Jack, who was standing over the flames rushing up from the charcoal. 

He went to pull open the door, lost his balance and had to grab hold of the wall, and then tried again with no problem. He yelled out, “I need some time for the fried potatoes. Don’t let that fire get too hot too fast.”

“You can’t make potatoes!” Jack hollered back. “You’ll fall on your ass. Wait for me and I’ll peel them.”

“I can do that sitting down.”

“What?”

“I said ... Oh, forget it.” He went back inside. 

Jack did insist on helping out, running back and forth between the cabin and the yard in back, and though Ennis argued they weren’t in any rush, that Jack should calm down and look to the meat only, that didn’t stop him. In the end they had a better-than-restaurant meal with the steaks, the range-potatoes, applesauce, big hunks of bread, and beer. They sat out on the back porch and ate from plates on their knees.

Ennis sawed away at the T-bone, chasing every last bite of beef. “This is lot better than those casseroles.”

“I figured we deserved the steaks. But I like some of what we’ve been eating.” 

“It’s been okay. Nothing like this, though.”

“I’ll say. Is yours done the right way?”

“Yeah, you got it just how I like it.”

Ennis took his time. He liked eating outdoors so long as he wasn’t forced into it, like when K.E. and him had been looking for work. The back porch view wasn’t much, a sightline into the trees and the rising slope, and most of that was losing its color now that the sun had set. There was still something satisfying about it. 

Jack put his plate down on the wood floor next to his chair, stretched out his legs, and folded his hands over his belly. “Like old times,” he sighed.

Ennis snorted and spooned out the last of his applesauce from one of the little containers Jack had brought. “That bed in there’s more comfortable than our old, lumpy bedrolls.”

Jack laughed softly. “We’ve come up in the world.”

“And I expect you won’t be shaking from the cold tonight. Even with all the blankets and stuff you used to bring, you never could get warm.”

There was a noticeable pause. Ennis glanced over at where Jack looked mighty thoughtful. “You got me warm plenty of times,” Jack said.

Ennis looked away. “I suppose I did.”

“You ready to go inside?” Jack asked. 

The only channel that had a decent signal was showing a basketball game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets, Jack’s favorite team, so Ennis settled down next to him on the sagging sofa to watch it. He idly thought that him and Jack rarely sat next to each other on their couch in the back room, with some notable exceptions that hadn’t included much sitting. He imagined Bill would tell him sitting on the wooden rocking chair would be better for him than slouching where he was. But he was relaxing. 

Pro basketball wasn’t something he was interested in, but he watched anyway. What else was there to do? The well-worn worry circles in his mind were easy to slip into, so instead, he watched. He supposed he could wash the dishes, but they’d keep until morning. 

The action of the game went on with him not caring who was in the lead. Ennis sank deeper into the cushions. Jack was perched on the edge of the sofa like he wanted to climb into the arena where the game was being played, all tensed up like this was life or death going on when it wasn’t even the playoffs. His lips were redder than on a normal day since he was chewing on them. Ennis wanted to tell him to stop, but it was probably no use. Jack was wrought up, his eyes kind of narrowed as he followed one dunk after another. Is that how Jack had been looking the past couple of weeks? Ennis hardly knew, cause he hadn’t been paying attention in that way. Jack was like Jenny, with her strong enthusiasms for one thing after another, and yet not like her, as Jack was a man grown. But a man who didn’t hold back in the ways he was feeling. It seemed he didn’t know how to guard himself from any of it, the good or bad. Ennis didn’t think Jack felt more inside than he himself did, but he sure let it show more. 

Jack turned to him like he knew he was in Ennis’s attention. “This is a great game for so early in the season.”

Ennis supposed that was so, but he couldn’t really say. 

During halftime, Jack got them each more beer, and then he proved he knew how to start a fire in a fireplace. Ennis stayed where he was and watched his every move -- leaning over to place the logs, twisting around to reach up and check that the flue was open, pulling back with sooty fingers that he dusted off on his jeans, placing the kindling and firing it with an easy snap of his fingers with the match. 

“No use in keeping the light on,” Ennis said, when Jack was still on his knees before the hearth.

So out the light went, leaving them with only the TV and the fire flickering yellow light on the dark log walls, the scuffed wood floors, and the shadowy rafters that crossed the ceiling. The game got going again, but now Ennis had something else to watch, and he did. 

He would've got drowsy except for his leg objecting to the day, whether cause of the angle of the way he was sitting or the trip in the truck, he didn’t know. But it began to throb enough that if he’d been home he would’ve considered a pain pill. Course, he’d left them behind and anyway, the last few days he’d been trying not to take any pills at all.

Before the therapy, getting out of his shoes had been a project. Now, he bent over, untied his right one, kicked, and that was that. “You mind if I put my foot up?” he asked, and before Jack could answer he squirmed back into the corner of the couch and lifted his leg up along it. His toes ended up brushing against Jack’s thigh. 

“You want me to move?” Jack asked.

“Not if you can stand my smelly foot.”

Jack humphed. “Your feet never bothered me.” As if to prove it, he shifted closer, picked up Ennis’s foot and put it in his lap. Then he went back to watching the game.

Ennis about jumped out of his skin when Jack started rubbing his foot. He remembered real well that first massage when Bill’s attention to his feet had about sent him into heaven. Jack didn’t take off his sock, and it was almost like he wasn’t paying all that much attention to what he was doing, but his fingers ranged all over Ennis’s foot. 

Ennis closed his eyes, remembered how Bill had suggested he do that, and then popped them open. About then Jack started to work on his arch, rubbing hard along it with his knuckles, and it felt fucking good. Ennis shut out sight of the world and decided to enjoy what he had while he had it. Jack didn’t know anything about Bill and his massages. This came from somewhere else.

“Can you believe this Olajuwon fellow?” Jack said. “Seven feet tall and with such a touch for the ball.” 

“Uh-huh.”

Jack chuckled. Ennis grunted. Jack chuckled again and went after his toes like he meant it. A few silent minutes passed before Jack asked him, “How about we get your other foot up here? You’re all twisted around.”

Ennis lifted his left leg on Jack’s lap without any fuss, and Jack attacked his shoelaces. And that was okay, him doing it. It wasn’t so bad when he took off Ennis’s socks, either, and went to work on both bare feet at the same time, both Jack’s hands rubbing and sometimes tickling a little. 

Ennis kept his eyes open this time, ignoring the game and resting his gaze on Jack instead, there in the flickering light, in this cabin he’d never expected to be in again, feeling Jack’s fingers on him -- no sex, no expectation of it, neither one of them drunk this time -- and liking it. 

He cleared his throat. “How about I do this for you too? You could swing your legs up here and we could both .... ” He trailed off. Stupid idea. 

“Maybe some other time. I want to concentrate on you. You like this?”

“Sure.”

“Then just let things be.”

Let things be. The current of the world had always run against him, and he’d always fought it. He was tired by it. Ennis let Jack have his way. 

The game wound down, Jack’s team in the lead by twelve points, and Jack’s hands on him got slower, didn’t press so hard, sometimes skimmed across the skin atop his feet, sometimes held his heel like it was something special. It was all good, especially as Ennis saw Jack lean back against the cushions, saw him calm down, saw tiredness come over him, his eyelids flickering, and finally saw him fall to sleep. 

It wasn’t a quick, during-the-commercials nap, either. Jack was sound asleep and stayed that way. It was way earlier than Jack usually hit the sack, and he didn’t have a habit of checking out in front of the TV like Ennis had been doing the last weeks. The man was really tired. Ennis watched the closing minutes of the game for him, in case Jack asked or something happened. But the Rockets won the game with no fuss. Jack slept on, his mouth open a little, one of his eyelids trembling now and then. Ennis wondered if he was dreaming. Hoped he was dreaming of something that made him wanna smile. Well, he wouldn’t interfere. A show about building boats from ancient times came on, and he was sort of interested. He’d wake Jack up when it was over and get them both to bed, but in the meantime he’d let Jack dream. His feet weren’t cold. 

*****

Ennis woke up with the dawning sun and lay there for a while, listening to a whole choir of birds singing. He supposed there were mockingbirds, blue jays, maybe some sparrows or doves, spread out in the trees in back that came close to the house. It sounded fine.

Ennis woke again when the sun was higher, but Jack was still snoring, so he slipped out of bed, though he had to slap a hand on the mattress to get himself straight. Once he’d visited the bathroom, he rooted around in the refrigerator, careful as he bent over so as not to over-balance and knock his head. There was bacon and eggs and bread for toast. Ennis started to cook. 

The mound of blankets on the bed, stirring, caught his attention, and then Jack appeared, tousled and sleepy-eyed. He stared at Ennis for a while, said, “Is there a better thing to wake up to than you frying bacon in your undershorts?” and staggered to the bathroom. 

Ennis glanced down at himself. It hadn’t occurred to him to get dressed, but maybe he should.

Jack hardly seemed to wake up at the table, though he wolfed down the food. Once it was gone, he went straight back to the bed and climbed in without saying a word, even with his shirt and socks and jeans on.

Amused, Ennis followed him. “You going back to sleep?”

“Uh-huh. Don’t have to work.”

He patted the quilt over Jack’s shoulder. “Okay.” He’d find something to do with himself. 

Cleaning up the dishes would likely keep Jack awake, as close as everything was to everything else in the cabin, so he slipped on his jacket, grabbed his hat from the rack by the front door, and went outside. 

A slow walk -- a real slow walk, sometimes unsteady, with a few curses to keep him and his leg company -- about the place kept him occupied for a while, as the sun rose high enough that he began to feel some warmth in the air. The owner was doing a good job of caring for the cabin: not too many cobwebs under the eaves, huge stacks of firewood under the front porch, and cleared underbrush for thirty feet all around. He took a trip hauling an armful of wood up onto the porch. Him and Jack wouldn’t likely need much more than what was in the cabin already, but in a month or two, in winter, somebody might be staying here who was caught short. 

Then he sat on the front steps and rested, cause he knew better than anybody that he wasn’t full strength. Still, it was real nice being outside on his own, nobody hanging over him waiting for him to fall on his ass. 

The birds had stopped chirping long ago, though now and then one swooped from tree to tree. Once in a while some distant traffic noise came to him, but for the most part it was dead quiet up here, the kind of outdoors quiet he’d always moved in, that could seep into a man’s bones and his thoughts. 

For the first time in a long time, he wished he had a cigarette. He was sitting doing nothing, with Jack sleeping sound like a baby behind him, nobody around for a long ways, a cloudless sky, and a clear view across the valley-hugging trees over to the rise in the land that ended in sharp peaks. About when the people staying in the cabin would need the firewood, those peaks would begin to let snow live on them, a startling white cover that would edge down farther as the winter went on. Ennis didn’t know how high up he was, and he hadn’t spent a winter in the valley yet, but he knew there’d be snow. 

There was a temptation to give in to his darker thoughts, and he knew it -- _what were they gonna do? how could he live half a man? why was Jack so frazzled that he needed this away-weekend so bad?_ \-- but he fought against them by standing up, something he hadn’t been able to do so easy even a few days ago. The narrow road they’d come in on stretched further on, and a walk to see what was in that direction tempted him. He wouldn’t go far; he might go twenty feet and that would be it. But this would be a good test, wouldn’t it? To see if all Bill said might be true. 

Half an hour later he was bent over, leaning on a sturdy stick he’d picked up along the way, checking out what was left of a dead raccoon, or could be a possum, when he heard a door slam. 

“Ennis!” Jack hollered, long and drawn out, like he was calling way into the distance, when Ennis was right here, not all that far away. “Ennis, where are you?”

He didn’t know why Jack saw fit to disturb his peace.

“Ennis!” Jack hollered again. 

If the man would give him a chance to answer .... “Over here,” he said not nearly as loud as Jack was shouting. “Down the road.”

There was the sudden rushing sound of footsteps, the shush-shush of dried leaves being stepped on, real fast, as if Jack was running ....

And he was, when he came into view around the bend in the road, though he dropped to a walk as soon as he saw Ennis. He wasn’t wearing a hat or a coat, and it was cool enough out here for Jack to need them. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Jack asked, kinda rattled, before he even got all that close. 

Ennis squatted down next to the possum carcass, cause that’s what it was. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do, as it wasn’t easy and he had to put a hand out onto the forest litter to keep himself from toppling over. Jack didn’t seem to notice, though. “Checking out this dead critter.”

“Jesus, Ennis, I .... I....”

Ennis looked up at him. “What?” 

Jack stared at him and said, sounding a little like a lost boy, “I woke up all of a sudden and you weren’t there.”

“You didn’t expect me to stay inside and watch you sleep, did you?” Ennis drawled. “The sun’s shining.”

“No, but .... You walked all this way without me? Suppose you’d fallen down or hit your -- ”

“Now you’re sounding like Junior.”

“No I’m not. But I was wondering where you were,” Jack said, trying to make that seem reasonable. 

Ennis shook his head and stood up, using the stick. Jack reached down and did some of the helping too. He figured he knew what was going on: it was his fault for saying he’d thought of leaving. He bet Jack had woke up heavy from his morning nap, the way sometimes happened, and jumped to conclusions that didn’t make no sense. 

“Well, I didn’t fall down and there’s nothing wrong with me, though I can’t say the same about you. Come on, let’s go back.” Ennis took his arm and gave him a push to get him going, but once they got walking he held on, part cause he had to, part to prove to this crazy man that he was here, and part cause it wasn’t all that bad, was it, that Jack Twist came running after him?

They took their time going back. Ennis showed him every tiny thing of interest that he’d found as he’d made his slow and careful way -- the woodpecker hole the size of his fist, a huge squirrel’s nest high up in one of the trees, the faint hint of a woodland trail leading up and deeper into the forest, how one tree had fallen into the branch crotch of another, so it was being held up, though its roots still held to the ground.

Even though the cabin was already in sight through the steady trunks and the dappled sunlight filtered by the branches, they stopped halfway back to sit on a log that must have fallen years before. It was half-rotted with plenty of moss covering it, but there were two convenient spots where two men could sit and look around. Ennis didn’t need the rest time, he was quick to point out, but he wouldn’t mind sitting for a while.

Jack seemed calmed down by now, looking around with interest. Now he leaned over and seemed to be watching a patch of sunlight shimmering on the dirt. “Remember when we used to do this? Take walks in the woods?”

It had been during their early years together. Later on, they’d mainly rode the horses, though Ennis couldn’t say why they’d made that change. One time, he remembered, he’d come to Jack straight from three sleepless nights on a roundup, and he’d been tired, not interested in walking. That was probably the start of it.

“I liked that. Wish we could go further now.”

“Let’s not push it any more than you have already. I never thought you’d go so far on your own.” 

Ennis pushed up his hat and scratched his forehead. “I guess Bill knows what he’s talking about.”

But by the time they got to the cabin, the leg was making itself known again, and he didn’t object when Jack helped him up the steps to the front porch, where Ennis took advantage of the bench swing to take the weight off. 

Jack went in to get his hat and coat and then came out to sit with him. Ennis had been fine on the swing by himself, but with Jack next to him -- not touching thigh to thigh but close to that -- he suddenly thought of how this was a womanly kind of chair, and just from Jack sitting down they were swinging back and forth like kids. He tried to stop it by planting both feet firmly on the gray-worn planks of the floor, but Jack said, “Oh, come on, it won’t kill you.” 

So he lifted his toes and let Jack set the motion of the swing, pretty gentle, and it wasn’t so bad. He looked overhead to see that the chains bolted into the roof didn’t show a hint of rust. The joints seemed secure, and nothing was creaking. 

They rocked back and forth, sometimes Jack pushing them, sometimes Ennis pushing them, the motion sort of soothing. After a while, Jack dropped his head back and lifted one arm along the back of the swing behind Ennis. He gave a noticeable sigh. 

“This sure is nice. We need to get us one of these.”

“We don’t have a porch, Jack. Where’d we put a porch swing?”

“Well, then, maybe we need to find the time to ... to ....” His hand reached for whatever he was looking for. “To sit down together and just rest. I could stay like this forever.” 

“You’d get bored pretty soon. A man can’t rock all day every day.”

“True. But this is still nice.”

Ennis found he had nothing to say, and so he got them rocking again, and another few minutes passed. The sun was moving toward its highest point of the day, not all that high with this being November, when the sound of an airplane buzzing came to them. Ennis couldn’t see it for quite a while, but then Jack pointed out where it was without a word. They tracked it as it flew along the length of the valley, there and then gone within a minute or two. It had been a small plane, but even those moved pretty fast and could get where people needed to go without a lot of effort.

Back they went to their back-and-forth way of looking out at the world, him and Jack next to each other, with nothing they needed to do and no place they needed to go unless they decided all on their own to go there. They could go walking again, they could take the truck down to Red River, they could do a million different things, or they could stay right where they were. It was a lot like the second and third and fourth days of their weeks together in the mountains, before the fear of parting rose up, or even better, it was like those timeless weeks up on Brokeback after him and Jack had learned what sex between them could lead to. 

Something in Ennis wanted to say something about that, how he was remembering the way nineteen-year-old Jack had lazed around in the short meadow grass on bright afternoons, how Ennis hadn’t been able to take either his eyes or his heart off him, though it’d been years before he’d understood what was going on. But not saying something about what he was thinking was one of those things that could happen too. 

He glanced over at Jack, who looked content, with no inclination to open his mouth, and then Ennis returned to contemplating that splash of orange color down by where the road must be, where a bunch of aspens still hadn’t dropped their leaves. 

This silence was okay by him. Back when he’d been meeting up with Jack in the hills, there’d been a fair amount of silence between them, and it hadn’t all been when they’d been catching their breath after rutting like two bulls against each other. No, there’d been a blessed silence that wasn’t Alma screeching at him, and a calm, comfortable silence that Ennis had yearned for. He fit into Jack’s silences, and he supposed Jack had fit into his silences. It was still true. He supposed they fit into the not-silences the same way, cause Jack did like to talk.

“Yeah, real nice,” Ennis said. 

Jack nodded, accepting, and they kept rocking. 

*****

_“Uhn. Uh. Uhhhhh,” Ennis panted softly. Didn’t want nobody to hear, not even the passing possums or the birds in the trees, nothing outside Aguirre’s big tent. He worked himself fast, fingers flying against his dick, slap, slap, the slap of it, the sound of it and his heavy breathing making his heart beat so hard it was trying to jump out of his chest. “Uh, uhn, uhn” oh, God, spreading his natural slick, had a lot of it, so horny, needed to come, needed to come so bad, out of his mind with it last night, and the afternoon before, and the morning before that, all the time couldn’t get his mind off it, especially needed to come when he couldn’t touch himself, Jack hanging around too long when Ennis had to get alone in the tent, had to but couldn’t with Jack right there, wishing he’d go away, needing it worse and worse, but now he was alone and his dick was heavy in his hand, swelling, getting close, he loved that firm hardness, how his balls were drawing up too, had to touch them, near pulled up to his center, hard marbles, roll them with his fingertips and then back to pull his dick, the first touch pushing him, quivering, to the very edge, slapped his free hand on the ground cloth, closer, oh, God, slapped again, arched up, closer._

_The tide of his coming swept over him, fucking great. Pulling hard, needing it to last, wishing it could go on and on, but here was one last spurt, so good._

_The one good thing in his life nobody could take away, about the only good thing he had, period._

_Without letting himself feel the echoes of it, like he wished he could, Ennis mopped up real quick and pulled up his pants, cause he never knew when Jack would ride down from the sheep in the mornings. He shouldn’t see the man for another hour, but lately Jack had taken to showing up earlier, and the last thing Ennis wanted Jack to know was that he was jacking off in the tent all the time._

_He did lay back and stare up at the tent pole. Huh. Jacking off. Jack. He bet Jack had been teased about that a time or two._

_What was going on with him, though? He hadn’t been this horny since he was fifteen, traveling with K.E., when he’d finally got his growth spurt going. Had been real bad there for a while, afraid he’d get caught out on the range when the urge came over him and he couldn’t say no. The cattle had seen a thing or two from him, for sure._

_He was lucky Alma had said hello and met him that time he was in town. Knowing he’d have her there for fucking real soon had calmed him down a lot. That’s what marriage was about, wasn’t it? To calm a man down. When he walked with Alma, it wasn’t like the urges came over him crazy-like, the way it’d been when he was out working with the cowboys on the range, them grown men and him a sex-mad half-grown teenager._

_But now he was away from her and what she promised once they were married. He’d thought at nineteen that he was past that stuff, but it’d come roaring back once he got on the mountain._

_The sun was shining through the tent flap, so he’d better get up. Jack would be wanting his breakfast soon._

_He started the coffee and cut some bread, wondering if Jack up on the mountain did what he did down here. Maybe that pup tent didn’t smell like cat piss anymore. Maybe it smelled like Jack getting off._

_Ennis shook his head as he got a little light-headed. Maybe he should try to keep his hands off his dick today, if this is what coming all the time did to a man._

*****

After lunch, Ennis told himself that even if Jack did make sport of him doing his therapy work, it had to be done, and besides, he could take whatever Jack could dish out. It turned out, though, that when Ennis made plain he had exercises to get to, Jack turned away from where he was piling their dishes in the sink and said he was real interested. He offered to help, though Ennis doubted there was anything he could do.

“Why don’t you go off somewhere, take a walk or something?”

“We already did that,” Jack argued. “Besides, I want to see what this is all about.”

So Ennis took the flipbook that Bill had given him, with every movement outlined, along with how many times he should do it written down, and showed it to Jack. They spent some time at the table with their heads bent over it, Jack asking questions and sounding impressed. “You do all this?” he asked. “Every day? It must take forever.”

“About an hour.”

“So that’s what you were doing when you took those long naps over the weekend.”

“I was sleeping, yeah, but before that I did this. You, uh, you don’t think this is kid stuff?”

“Hell, no. Ennis, you were hurt bad, and what you’re doing here is getting you back on your feet. College stuff, maybe.”

Ennis began to relax. He appreciated Jack’s attitude. 

Of course, that couldn’t last. First Jack asked, his lips twitching, if he needed to put on the shorts. When Ennis told him, no, that was only for when Bill was watching, Jack’s eyebrows went up and down. He said it was a good thing the therapist was married or he’d have something to say about Ennis running around bare-legged with another man.

Ennis felt his face heat. “Damn it, Jack. Shut up.”

But when had that man ever really held his tongue? Once Ennis got up on his unsteady legs -- swinging them around, pushing against doors and walls, wrapping orange plastic bands around his ankles and pulling against them, standing up, sitting down, laying flat on the floor and lifting one, two, three, four, five -- the tide turned. The orange band, especially, Jack thought was hilarious. He about had a fit, he tried so hard not to laugh when Ennis started to use it. 

“Get off it,” Ennis said as he swung his leg out and stretched the band, but since he intended to say that pretty rough, and it came out instead like he was half-laughing too, it didn’t have much effect. It was sort of funny, he had to admit, if he looked at what he was doing through Jack’s eyes.

“Remember what you said, college stuff?” he tried to say as severe as a schoolteacher with a ruler. “So no more grief, you hear me?”

Jack picked up the flipbook and smacked a loud kiss on the cover. “No more grief, got it.”

“Damn fool,” Ennis said, but nobody listening would think he was anything but fond of Jack Twist when he said it. Who’d think he could have a good time with what had been a heart-heavy chore?

It might be that he tried a bit harder than he normally did cause Jack was watching, and it might be that he did more repetitions than Bill had recommended, and it might be that he even threw in a few more exercises than he normally aimed for. When Jack got down on the floor and did some leg lifts with him, though, enough was enough. He’d sweated out his shirt half an hour before. 

“You ready for that Jacuzzi now?” Jack asked, as he gave Ennis a hand getting up. “I bet that would feel fine on your leg.”

“Uh ....” Instant doubt swamped him. “I don’t know .... Both of us .... You promised that .... ”

Jack got it right away. He didn’t even let on he was disappointed or anything, just a little flicker in his eyes that Ennis noted. “Sure, we go in one at a time. You want to go first?”

Getting into the tub was hell to pay, it being surrounded by a wooden platform that had to be stepped over, and even when he’d been a whole man back in March, Ennis had almost slipped getting in and beaned himself. He knew a reasonable person might call for Jack to help him, but he wouldn’t do that. He’d been getting help all weekend, it seemed, Jack reaching to put their hands together way more than had been happening at home. Maybe that was cause he was trying to do more here. It wasn’t that he objected, but he could slide his naked self into the tub, couldn’t he? He sat on the wood on his butt, pushed back until he was sitting on the porcelain edge, and that cut into his butt cheeks enough so it hurt, swung his legs around -- hey, he could do that, hadn’t even needed to lift up his knee with his hands -- and slid like some stupid, awkward dog into the water, banging his elbow in the process.

He guessed he yelped loud enough to be heard. Jack called out, “You okay in there?”

Ennis yelled back, “Okay,” and set himself to test the jets against his leg. 

It had to be at least a half hour later when Jack banged on the door. “You gonna stay in there forever? Come on, you’ll use up all the hot water.”

Ennis chuckled, cause maybe they needed a great big tub with a Jacuzzi in their old house instead of a porch swing, he favored it so much. “You’ll like it cold.”

“The hell I will.”

“Cold water’s good for you, Jack.”

“No it’s not. Come on, tell me there’s still hot water coming out.”

“Well, maybe. A little. But could be the Jacuzzi’s not working right, got to test it some more. It’ll take a while.”

“You’ll wear it out, as much as you’ve been using it!”

“Could be. I think I hear the motor sputtering. You might be out of luck.”

“Goddamn, Ennis!”

“Oh, all right.” He reached forward and pulled the plug out so the water could start draining.

Jack shoved the door open and, though he looked fierce, Ennis knew he was putting it on. Inside, he was sure Jack matched the grin that Ennis had on his own face, cause it was a pleasure to toss it back and forth the way they’d been doing. 

“I’m gonna haul you out of there and throw you on your ass,” Jack threatened, but when Ennis got himself so he was standing in the tub -- he took his time about it, the water gurgling around his knees as it drained -- Jack leaned over and ran his hands down Ennis’s arms real gentle until he got a good grip. 

“Be careful now,” he warned. “Everything’s slippery.”

There wasn’t any right way to do this. Ennis sat back on the edge of the tub, that came up almost to the top of his leg, and pushed back until he felt his rump hit the wood. Jack’s hands were spread on either side of him now, and Ennis paused a couple seconds and felt his strength. 

“Can you turn and get your legs up? I guess I could -- ”

Ennis interrupted him by swiveling and getting his left leg up and over, bent and braced on the wood. He was lopsided now, one side of his butt down on the wood part and one side up on the porcelain part, not the most comfortable place he’d ever balanced. 

“I can do this,” he growled. And then he did, lifting his right leg, putting it where it needed to be, and then turning all the way until his feet felt the floor and he stood up. 

“Wow!” Jack said, stepping back. “First prize for Bill .... What’s his last name again?”

“Springfield.”

“Yeah. First prize for Bill Springfield. Ennis, you’re almost good as new already, not even needing two weeks more.”

Ennis knew that wasn’t so, as a man shouldn’t need any help at all getting out of the tub, even this special kind of tub, but he liked hearing Jack say that, anyway.

“Here.” Jack draped a green towel over his shoulders.

Ennis grabbed it, but then Jack slapped his ass, not gentle now. He felt the impact of the hand on his wet skin all the way down to his balls. 

“Hey!” Ennis protested, but Jack just grinned at him.

He stood on the bathmat and began to dry himself. Jack stood with his back to Ennis on the other side of what was a pretty big, square bathroom, with mostly log wood walls like the rest of the cabin, and began to get undressed. Jack pulled his shirt from out of his jeans and then got it over his head, mussing up his hair. There was a faint shadow, like a dirt mark, low on Jack’s side, barely visible as his arms stretched. Jack had his hurts too.

“How’re your ribs doing? I ain’t asked you that for a while,” Ennis said, slowly rubbing the water from his chest with one end of the towel.

Then Jack pushed his jeans down his legs, along with his shorts, and Ennis stopped looking anywhere else except at that pale ass. 

Jack kicked his jeans to the side, half turned so he could put a hand out to the wall to balance, and leaned over to pull off his socks. Now his dick and his bush of hair were in view. A drop of water from Ennis’s wet hair dribbled down his face. He licked at it to get it off.

“Mostly okay now,” Jack said. He grimaced. “After a long day at work, like driving Corliss all over creation, they pain me some.”

“Hey now,” Ennis said, not liking that expression. “He’s not here now, hurting you, is he? Just you and me.”

It took no genius to see Jack fight off mention of his bastard boss and get back into the here and now, where he was standing naked in the bathroom with Ennis. Jack said, “You, me, and this Jacuzzi, that better have hot water or you’ll hear about it.”

The last gurgling of the water draining from the tub interrupted whatever Ennis was going to say. “You better get it going then,” he said when the sound died down. He stepped back to watch. 

It was possible that Jack knew he was watching. Ennis was pretty sure he did, though he didn’t let on. Instead, Jack bent over and started the water, giving anybody who cared to look a full view of his just-as-good-as-when-he-was-nineteen ass and those balls that Ennis always had loved hanging from between his legs. Was Jack moving his legs further apart, so Ennis had a front row seat to seeing those balls he hadn’t been up close and personal with in such a long time? That had to be one of the best sights, and he wanted to reach out and feel those balls in the palm of his hand, wanted to taste them, wanted to suck them into his mouth, careful-like, while Jack moaned about it. 

Yeah. Ennis remembered how that felt, to give and to take. 

Under cover of the towel, that flowed down from where he was holding it up by his throat, he felt his dick stir. 

There wasn’t any mistaking it. He gulped in air, and Jack stayed as he was, bent over, his arm outstretched to the faucet, the water roaring out again, roaring into Ennis’s ears like a waterfall.

He was afraid to move, to swallow, to say anything, to even look down to check his hardness, for fear any of that would make this feeling of his body come back to life disappear.

Jack wasn’t afraid. He turned around, deliberate, straightened, and looked at Ennis with hunger in those blue eyes. 

It would be so easy .... It was supposed to be easy ....

Time thumped as slow as his booming heart, over and over again. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ennis said. He grabbed his clothes and his shoes and left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with a bang. 

He threw everything on the table and stood there, feeling his dick go back to normal. He breathed in air as deep as he could get it. Was it possible .... He was afraid to let himself even think it. But maybe ....

*****

_Ennis hadn’t ever had a chance to get book smart, but he’d learned plenty out in the world. He knew when he was being looked at. Jack had this habit of cutting his eyes to the side before he set his sight on Ennis and kept it there, so steady and deep that Ennis almost felt like nobody had ever looked at him before._

_He’d noticed it first at the bar they’d gone to before they headed up the mountain. Jack had a motor-mouth, no denying, but he listened too. And when Ennis said his few words, those eyes fixed on him. It made an itch start between his shoulder blades, and so he shut up._

_But now that they were up on Brokeback, he found there was something about the mountain air that loosened his tongue. Or maybe it was the feeling of being so far away from everything. Only Jack would hear him, and he didn’t matter. So Ennis managed to open his mouth and say a few things -- it only seemed right, payment back to Jack for amusing him night and day. Jack listened, and looked, swallowing him up with his eyes._

_Jack looked at other times besides when they were gabbing. He looked when everything was silent around the night’s campfire, and they only heard the wind in the trees. “That’s the stars talking,” Ennis found himself blurting out one night. Jack didn’t laugh at this wisdom that his mama had entertained him with when he was a kid. He nodded, tilted his head up at the night sky, and then brought his gaze back to Ennis. The fire was hot that night; the flames seemed to lick at his cheeks. He didn’t know why he’d said that. Being up on Brokeback was making him crazy._

_Like the day he decided that, with Jack in the camp, he needed to wash up. With them sharing duties, Jack wasn’t around all the time. All he had to do was wait until Jack was up with the sheep, and he wouldn’t have to share the sight of his nakedness. But Brokeback was doing something to him, making him into some man he wasn’t, jerking off all the time, talking to Jack like he wasn’t a stranger, singing songs for two at the moon. He somehow decided washing up wouldn’t matter, Jack wouldn’t give a shit, and he didn’t care either. So Ennis warmed the water, announced, “I’m getting clean,” and stripped down._

_Jack didn’t look. Not for a second. Ennis felt like he’d jumped off a cliff and felt air rushing past his ears._

_But it didn’t matter fuck-all. It didn’t mean anything._

*****

It was warmer Saturday night than it’d been on Friday, so Jack and him pulled the chairs from off the back porch, all the way through the living space, and down to the wide-open view the falling land in front of the cabin gave. Well, mostly Jack did it. 

With nothing overhead but the moonless night sky and a cloud cover, the valley spread out before them like somebody had dumped a can of black paint across the land. Nobody lived down there in the woods, it seemed; there wasn’t even a twinkle of a ranch house light, just dark and deeper dark, shadow and shade, the combination of blacks a puzzle that needed solving in order to get the shape of the world. There was one spot where a line of gray showed highway 38, off to the left -- north -- and now and then the headlight of a car or truck made itself known. Farther north, the faintest hint of a glow between two unnamed mountains showed where the folks of Red River were enjoying their Saturday night. 

Against the night sky rose the mountains. Ennis didn’t know why he took to mountains the way he always had. Even when he’d been a little one, his eyes had been drawn to them on the horizon. It wasn’t Brokeback that’d given him this feeling; he’d always felt it. In among the mountains there was something going on that didn’t have a lot to do with people. People could fuss and fight and hold their opinions in their little towns, but up here time was stretched out and strong. People would break their backs and their minds against how the mountains thought so deep and different. How the mountains viewed the world took no heed of little Ennis and how he sometimes went to bed hungry, or growing-bigger Ennis whose daddy beat him with the strap and the back of his hand, or grown Ennis and his struggle against how he really was, deep inside.

“You want another beer?” Jack asked from out of the darkness by his side. 

Ennis shook his head. His daddy, he had to admit, had been one mean bastard. He’d thought he’d figured out why long ago. His daddy had never shown all that much of a kind face to his children, not even K.E. who was his favorite. Ennis, hiding under the table one bad evening, listening to his daddy let loose, knew his daddy had never wanted any of them. 

At least, he’d come to convince himself that was daddy’s excuse. But what was Corliss’s excuse? It took a lot to rattle Jack the way he’d been rattled on Friday afternoon. 

“Why do you suppose Corliss is such a bastard?” he asked, and then he wished he hadn’t; he didn’t want to remind Jack of his troubles. 

Jack sighed and answered anyway. “I don’t know. I wish I did. If he had a thorn in his paw like in that old story, I’d pull it out and hope he’d say thank you kindly, but I doubt it.”

“You do have a way of thinking.”

“Yeah, well, he’d probably eat me for dinner instead of saying thank you.”

“So you got no idea at all why he’s such a grouch?”

Jack settled deeper into the big wooden chair, that had made marks in the dirt as they’d dragged it forward. He pulled the collar of his jacket up against his neck, too. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Figure his shorts are too tight?”

Jack huffed something that came close to a chuckle. “Yeah, definitely. Though thinking of him in his underwear makes me want to throw up.” 

“Or maybe it’s his shoes that’re too tight. He should be walking worse’n me, then.”

“He walks like he owns the world,” Jack said. “Bastard.”

“He wear a hat? Maybe it don’t fit right and gives him a headache.”

“Most times he doesn’t. Sometimes. Always black. The closest I can come is that he doesn’t get any sex at all. Back when I first started working, I wondered if he was married, but nobody’s ever said. I don’t think he is.”

Ennis wasn’t so sure he wanted to go in a sex direction, but Jack had steered them there, so he followed. “There you go, then. The man’s balls have shrunk like prunes.”

Jack laughed out loud. “Hot damn, yeah. Ouch!”

Ennis tried to come up with something else that he could use to make fun of Jack’s boss, but nothing more occurred to him except suggesting the man had had bad news, like Lureen’s cancer, but reminding Jack of that wasn’t what he wanted to do. 

A couple minutes passed as they settled into silence, but then Jack said, “I think Corliss was born mean, like a bad dog.”

“I wish you didn’t have to deal with him, Jack.”

“Yeah, me too. There’s nothing I can do about it, though.”

“That’s so.” Every working man was at the whim of bad bosses, and he’d had a few of them himself over the years. The only way to deal with them was to hunker down and take it. 

Except .... Ennis had never quit a job for any other reason than taking off with Jack, and it rubbed him raw to consider it, cause Jack had a real good job. It was bringing in mighty fine money, which was important especially now since he wasn’t producing a penny laid up the way he was. But .... it was possible Jack could quit and look elsewhere. Even thinking that scraped against Ennis’s way of viewing the world. 

“Say,” Jack said, “you know what we’re gonna have to do real soon? We have to get the house ready for winter. It gets as cold in these parts as in Wyoming, with plenty of snow.”

Ennis let go of what he didn’t want to say anyway. Jack would know the best thing to do at the feedlot. “We’d best get some supplies in for when we lose power.”

“I’ll take care of that the next couple weeks. We got some time.”

“It’s gonna be cold.” Ennis reached over and shoved Jack’s shoulder, felt Jack move and then come back against his hand. “You got your longjohns ready?”

Jack rubbed his face. “Hell, no. I’m not used to that sort of thing anymore. In Childress, it got cold, but we’d only get one or two snowstorms the whole season. Two, three inches at a time, and that’d be it.”

A breeze picked up, one Ennis could hear down in the valley before he felt it brushing against his face. He was used to spending hours out in cold weather, but he knew it wasn’t the same for Jack. He frowned. “I bet that old house we’re in will let the winter winds blow through.” 

“Wish we had a fireplace,” Jack said. 

“Wish for no winter while you’re at it. Or a wood stove. That would help. Sorry, Jack.”

Jack looked over at him. “Sorry? What for?”

It’d been a long time since Ennis had set himself to making enough money with the horses so that him and Jack could move to a better place. That goal had pushed him hard, though he’d never told Jack what was in his mind. The horses hadn’t worked out the way he wished they had, and him and Jack were no closer to bettering themselves in the housing department than they’d been this spring. Worse, considering the bills that would hit them soon from the hospital. 

Ennis sighed. “Sorry our place ain’t as nice as what you had in Amarillo.”

“That’s not important.”

“Sure it is.”

“No it’s not. I don’t care.”

Ennis knew Jack was bull-shitting him. “Do you got eyes? The roof’s half falling off even with all those shingles you nailed in, the windows ain’t tight, the floor’s crooked, nothing in it can match those fancy appliances you had in your town house, and -- ”

Jack stood up and looked down at Ennis, but he didn’t look mad or even sad at the state of the house they were living in. There was a smile that kept threatening to take over his mouth. “You still don’t get it, do you? I feel like I’ve said that a time or two to you.”

“Don’t get what?”

“When I say I don’t care, I really mean it. Ennis, we have been living together since February 29th. Eight months now.” Jack leaned down to him and cupped his chin in the palm of his hand. “You are a pain in the ass, no doubt, and half the time I want to pound some sense into your head, but I’d live in a pig sty with you. Get it?”

Ennis smiled back at him, so close. “You are a half-baked moron. Don’t you miss those ceiling fans you had? The whole house air conditioning? Remember how we sweated out the summer?”

“Ennis Del Mar, sweated up, my favorite thing so long as he doesn’t kiss me good-bye.” Jack got even closer, and Ennis thought he was going to get a kiss, but then Jack stopped and said, “This isn’t a good-bye kiss, this is one that says anywhere with you is just fine.” Then he kissed Ennis, short and sweet, no tongue, and Ennis was more than fine with it. He hadn’t said no kisses, he’d said no lovemaking.

Ennis was still smiling when Jack pulled back and they were eye-to-eye. “I better not hear complaining when the furnace blows out in the middle of January.” 

“Fuck you, I’ll complain when I want to. Come on, time for bed. It’s getting cold out here.”

“See what I mean?”

*****

The mattress yielded to fit his body. The sheet felt cool and comfortable against his skin. Jack was to his left, like they slept in their own bed, both of them curled up on their sides, facing one another. With the no-lovemaking agreement, Ennis didn’t feel any pressure laying here with Jack, only a hopeful thrumming in the back of his mind, that getting hard in the bathroom was the sign of things to come. But not this night. Some other night. 

“It’s been a real nice day,” Ennis said. 

“God, yes,” Jack sighed. “It’s been like our weeks together in Wyoming.”

“Better,” Ennis said. 

“Different.” 

“Yeah, better cause it’s different. If you, uh, if you wanna sleep close, that’d be okay.”

Jack came closer and turned over to fit himself against Ennis, back to front. This was Ennis’s favorite way to fall asleep, his arm over Jack such a familiar feeling, the way Jack’s body curved against his. For many long years, two or three weeks each year, he’d fallen to sleep by matching the rise and fall of his chest to Jack’s.

Gratitude swept over him, that he hadn’t felt when he woke up in the hospital, or when he’d finally got home, or when he began to think maybe he’d be able to walk right. Instead he felt it now. He flattened his palm and rubbed it over Jack’s chest. “Real glad I’m here,” Ennis whispered. He almost hadn’t been, but Jack had breathed life back into him. 

Jack rested his hand over Ennis’s. “Me, too,” he whispered back. 

*****

_Ennis didn’t mind switching off with Jack. He was fine tending the camp -- cooking was something he liked to do, washing clothes was okay when the sun was shining -- and he was fine riding his horse up the mountain to care for the sheep. A man did what he was asked to do, no questions. Not that Jack had asked, since it was Ennis who’d offered, when he saw how bothered Jack was by the arrangement. It was an easy thing for him to do, to get Jack to stop his complaining._

_The first night with the sheep was quiet. The sky had clouded over. He rode around with his eyes peeled and his rifle at the ready, but there wasn’t any sign of coyotes. Both the dogs minded their business and didn’t seem fussed about anything, and so he guessed he could head to the pup tent and get some shut eye._

_He crawled inside and realized that the tent did smell different, but he couldn’t say what it was, cat piss or something else. His nose would get used to it._

_Jack had left his bedroll in a mess, not expecting any switchout. In the morning Ennis would take it down to camp and return to the sheep with his own, but for now, this night, it was him and Jack’s bedroll, together. Ennis grabbed the end of it and shook it out, hoping to straighten it. There was a blanket on top, threadbare and hardly worth the name. He got that off and tossed it to the side, since he wouldn’t need it. Was that a stain in the middle of the bedroll? In the starlight, it was hard to tell. No, not a stain, only a shadow once he smoothed it out. Clean or dirty, he didn’t want to sleep on some other man’s bedding, did he? Not like he had a choice, though._

_Jack’s bedroll was heavier than his own. He knelt there and fingered an edge of it, rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. Nice. Patched in two places, he saw, but stitched like a woman had done it, not like his own clumsy attempts to mend his own clothes. He couldn’t see good enough to do that. But somebody had done right by Jack with those patches. Made his heart feel fine to imagine Jack’s mother caring for him._

_Ennis leaned over and sniffed, testing if the bedroll smelled like the tent. It didn’t. There was another smell there .... He picked up the head end, pulled it to his nose, and sniffed again to find a sort of ... sort of a warm smell. A man’s smell, he guessed, and that wasn’t so bad, was it? He could live with that._

_The night was getting on, and if he was going to get sleep it had better be now. Ennis flipped onto his butt and got settled where Jack had slept the night before and for many nights before that. The warm smell was there, surrounding him, and so was the love in the patches, and the knowing that Jack had probably jerked off right where he was._

_His chest got tight. “Damn,” he said out loud, though he didn’t know exactly how he meant that. It was all too much for him to think about._

_Ennis rolled over, burying his head against his arm. It was going to be a long night._

*****

On Sunday morning, Ennis woke up late to Jack making breakfast with something of a clatter. They ate a mish-mash of scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon, along with toast, Jack shoving down four slices total, and after that they both headed back to bed for a morning nap. Ennis pretended to protest even as he was getting his pillow in shape, but he had no real objections to joining Jack on the mattress. Jack’s eyes were at half-mast already. 

“Ain’t never been so lazy,” he said an hour or more later, once they’d woke up. He had no ambitions for the day, but Jack reminded him about the exercises, so he did them, though not so many and not so hard this time. Jack kept cracking jokes from beginning to end, and Ennis’s face hurt from trying awful hard not to crack a smile. 

He took a bath then, though Jack said he’d wait for later in the day to do it. And then it came time for the mid-day meal. 

“We don’t have much,” Jack said, his head in the refrigerator. “Maybe enough bacon here for one sandwich. Grilled cheese, I suppose. We could do breakfast again.”

“There’s got to be something else.”

“Just the burgers for dinner,” Jack told him, straightening and closing the fridge door. “I guess we didn’t plan so good.”

“What’s with the ‘we’ business? I had no part in the food planning.”

“Then there’s nothing to it but to go to Red River for lunch. It’s not even ten minutes away, you know. Well, maybe fifteen, counting the time to get to 38.”

Eating out always seemed a waste of money unless it was a birthday or something -- but then it occurred to him that this could be the day he got behind the wheel again. 

“Be careful over these ruts,” Jack told him as he steered around the first switchback of the dirt road. Jack was holding onto his hat like he expected a high wind to snatch it off his head or maybe for Ennis to turn the truck over. 

“I ain’t your Aunt Sadie,” Ennis growled. “I can drive.”

In truth, he wasn’t entirely certain that he could. Nobody had told him one way or the other about what he could or couldn’t do on the road, and the stretch of his bad leg down to the accelerator was a new and not entirely good feeling. But it didn’t exactly hurt. 

“Can you brake okay?” Jack asked.

Ennis growled without putting a word into it, but then he pressed his foot against the brake pedal, testing. “Looks like it,” he said.

“I won’t think any the less of you if you decide -- ” 

“I hear you. Now leave me be.”

It took twice as long for him to navigate the road down to the highway compared to when Jack had driven in, but Jack didn’t mention it and Ennis wasn’t going to either. Once he turned left toward town onto the paved road, he relaxed. Now driving was easy, no jostling to his body throwing off his concentration. 

“What are you in the mood to eat?” Jack asked.

“Whatever’s open. We might not have much of a choice,” Ennis said as they passed the turnoff for the fair and rodeo grounds. It seemed like a million years ago that he’d ridden Samson to pull Tag off that bull. 

November was in-between seasons for northern New Mexico and tourists. It wasn’t summer season where city folks sought out the clean air, and it wasn’t winter season where the ski slopes were the big draw. That became obvious when they entered town. Not much traffic and not many on the street, even when the highway turned into Main Street. There wasn’t all that much to Red River, smaller even then Eagle Nest, with the mountains looming on both sides. About every business was geared to the tourist trade.

“This look good to you?” he asked, but before Jack answered he pulled into a small cafe tucked around the corner from Main Street. There were plenty of cars and trucks in the parking lot, and there wasn’t much of a walk to the front door. That was important, since he was still unsteady on his feet now and then, and he didn’t know how far his energy would take him. There was no way he was taking Jack’s arm for help, either.

“Mama Maria’s Mexican Restaurant,” Jack read from the sign. “You sure have got a taste for Mexican food since you’ve come south.”

“It’s cheap,” Ennis defended as he put on the emergency brake. 

“I’m not complaining. I can eat enchiladas all day long. Let’s go.”

The place was crowded for lunch. They followed the girl to a table up front near the window, but up against the wall, which suited Ennis. He got there without a wobble, though his leg felt sort of stretched. 

“You okay?” Jack asked as they sat down. 

“Yep,” Ennis said.

Ennis put on his glasses to see what was on the menu. When the waitress came, he asked for beef fajitas, with extra cheese. He’d had them once before with Jack in Taos and wanted to try them again. Jack ordered not only the enchilada plate with rice and beans, but a side order of two tacos and extra corn tortillas. 

Left alone at the table, Ennis said, “I thought I was the one who was hungry. You’re gonna look like Elvis Presley before he died if you keep eating like that.”

“If I can get you to eat like that, then we’d be talking. Here, have a chip.” 

Jack picked up a chip from the basket and held it out. Ennis took it but kept it in his hand, to tease Jack and prove that he couldn’t be bossed around. 

“Is it gonna kill you to put on a few pounds?” Jack asked. He grabbed Ennis’s wrist and tried to force it back toward his mouth.

Ennis wasn’t too happy with roughhousing in a public place like a restaurant, so he gave in right away and chomped on the chip. “Would you quit? I’ll make you do all the window caulking for winter if you don’t watch out.”

“I’m gonna do that anyway, you know.”

“We’ll see. Two weeks, remember.”

Jack grinned. “I’m not likely to forget.” He pushed back his chair. “Be back in a minute.”

Ennis idly watched him walk to the men’s room, and then he scanned the crowd, mainly the after-church group with kids and grandparents in tow, along with some men sitting at the counter. This place wasn’t fancy. Then he put his glasses back on and read the back of the menu telling some of the history of the town. When he was done with that, he looked up to see Jack coming out of the restroom, the door swinging behind him. 

Ennis realized all over again how he did like the way that man looked. He took off his glasses the better to see. Something about Jack’s dark hair appealed to him, and the way Jack walked, free and easy, and how anybody seeing him would know he wasn’t some grump tired of life. Ennis shifted in his chair, cause this wasn’t the time or place, but even so he didn’t take his eyes off Jack coming closer. 

His path through chairs and tables took Jack by the cash register, where their waitress had just finished ringing somebody up. The man -- older than Jack, broad-shouldered, white haired, with a big bushy moustache -- turned around, saw Jack, and said something to him. 

Ennis saw that Jack was startled. But then Jack talked back, and Ennis took the time to check out the man’s hat, that said _Tulip Feedlot,_ white lettering on black. That wasn’t good; this was somebody from Jack’s work. Ennis wondered if Jack’s feelings about Corliss extended to some others. This one wasn’t Andy, who Jack sort of liked, he recalled. He’d already met that pipsqueak. 

A woman holding a child’s hand passed in front of them, and then another one. When Ennis could see them again, Jack was gesturing to the door, and the big man nodded. They walked through the restaurant and out the front door. Huh. They must have something to talk over about work, and that wouldn’t set well with Jack. 

Ennis looked around at the people eating near him, but nobody had noticed how he was watching Jack and Mr. Feedlot, who were standing face to face on the sidewalk. Jack didn’t look happy. 

The Santa-Claus-type said something sharp to Jack, that was clear from the shape of what he could see through the window. Jack protested, it seemed to Ennis, but then finally nodded, like he’d been forced into admitting something. Some more talk, and Ennis didn’t like the hard look on Santa Claus’s face, but that didn’t last long. Jack waved his arm as if to say the other guy should go on. There wasn’t a handshake, but the guy got in his truck. Jack folded his arms and watched him go, standing there for quite some time once the truck had gone.

Ennis was wondering if he should go out to him when the waitress came with their food, unloading it without any mention that Ennis was sitting there alone. Once she left, Jack was there, pulling out his chair, sitting down, and not wasting any time with opening his mouth. 

“That goddamned James Perez. What does he want me to do, move out to the feedlot and live there? That might be his dream, but it sure as hell isn’t mine.”

“That the bunk manager you went to the gun show with that one time?”

Jack attacked his beef enchilada with a fork. Red ranchero sauce went flying all over his plate, slopping spots over to the table. “Yeah, back when I thought he was an okay guy instead of a .... He had the nerve to tell me I needed to stay near the phone when Corliss was out of town, and what was I doing in Red River? Can you believe that?”

Ennis considered. “Does seem that’s asking too -- ”

“Like there’s going to be some emergency that Andy can’t deal with, or him. It’s like he wants to know where I am all the time. The hell with that. The feedlot doesn’t run my life. I don’t need their permission to go out with you. Or when to go piss or ... anything.”

Jack Twist didn’t often get this mad, at least not when he wasn’t yelling at Ennis. His lips were tight with his eyebrows drawn down, and his eyes were aimed down to his plate hard enough to dig a hole in it.

“Why’d you go outside with him?”

That brought Jack’s eyes up to him again. He plunked both hands on the table, and made a sound like he thought Ennis might be the dumbest person on the planet. 

“Because I didn’t want him to see you.”

“Oh.” Ennis had no understanding of the little pang that hit him behind the breastbone, so he ignored it and said, “You usually don’t care about that, who sees us out and about. Just two guys and all. Not that I think the same.”

“I know, I know. But at the feedlot -- ”

“I get it,” Ennis said real quick. 

“I don’t know where James stands with me. Or at least I didn’t before now.” Jack went back to brooding like a thundercloud and then burst out with, “You know what I did? I told him I was waiting for my girlfriend who hadn’t driven into town yet. Can you believe that? I hate it. Fuck.”

“Smart thing to do,” Ennis said, even if there was some automatic response in him that wanted to say he wasn’t any girl. God’s truth. “No sense in getting your boss riled up.”

“Soon as he set eyes on me, he got riled anyway. We need more chips. Hey, waitress!”

*****

_One night, Ennis got to drinking with Jack before he headed up the mountain to the sheep. Could be it was a might late to get started, but he’d been having a fine time down at camp. Jack’d told a story about a heifer he’d raised when he was a kid, how it’d kicked him once and he’d kicked it back. Ennis had been holding the bottle to his lips when Jack got to the punch line, and he’d swallowed too fast and coughed, he’d been that amused. He’d said that Jack was feisty like a mule, and though Jack had gone sad for a bit, saying even a mule couldn’t hold against his daddy or those who thought like him, he’d brightened soon enough and started jabbering again._

_Lately, it was almost like Ennis liked hearing Jack talk._

_His horse knew the path up the mountain, so he could ride with the reins slack and hardly pay attention in the dappled starlight. That Jack, he was something else. Ennis hadn’t ever met anybody like him. Plus there wasn’t anybody else up here and nothing else going on, so it was natural how his thoughts rested on Jack. Instead of on Alma. He wondered what he would say to her once he was back on flat land. Would he mention Jack at all? He scratched over his ear, lifted his hat, scratched the top of his head, put the hat down, and rested both hands on the pommel of the saddle as the horse ambled along. It didn’t seem likely he’d do much talking to Alma at all. A little girl like her. She wouldn’t understand any of this, the hard-working ways of a man on a mountain._

_Ennis chased a coyote away that night with the help of the dogs, so he stood watch for a couple hours later than he normally hit the sack. When he did crawl into the tent, the sun wasn’t that far from rising. He dreamed of Alma standing in front of him in a blue dress with her face drawn up, wrinkled like a giant prune. Her little fists were clenched tight, and then they suddenly had boxing gloves on. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. He heard her wailing, growing louder and louder, until it sounded like that far off train whistle that Jack had said was so lonely. And through the dream, Ennis stood there, asking, Why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?_

*****

Jack was sorta quiet through lunch and ended up leaving half of what he’d ordered on the table. Ennis was sorry that James Perez had decided to go to Mama Maria’s that day; him and Jack had been having a pretty good time, and now Jack was down in the dumps. 

Ennis didn’t try to josh him out of it. Sometimes a man needed not to be all jolly, and Ennis could hardly blame him. Seemed the feedlot was trying to take from Jack more than a man should be asked to give. It wasn’t right, piling on top of what had bothered Jack about his job even before they’d left home. 

When they walked out into the parking lot, Jack said, “I don’t want to go back to the cabin now. Let’s go driving somewhere first. You want to drive, right?”

If that’s what Jack wanted to do, they’d do it. Ennis got behind the wheel and headed west through the forested slopes along route 38 until they got to Questa, a little nothing of a town that didn’t have much to recommend it. There was a sign that pointed to river access for the Rio Grande. Ennis was tempted to go off the beaten track.

“You want to go down to the river?” he asked.

“Nah,” Jack said. So that was that. 

Ennis kept driving, and Jack kept keeping his thoughts to himself. The road curved to the south, changing to route 522. They’d gone this way back in the spring when they’d first come to northern New Mexico, and he knew the truck was aimed for Taos now. 

After a while, Jack made an effort, rousing like he’d been asleep, and making a comment or two on how that was Mt. Wheeler over there, wasn’t it, and how it looked like they might get rain. Ennis was grateful for that; they didn’t have much of their weekend-time left, and he didn’t want to waste it. He hadn’t been a supporter in the beginning, but he’d come to see the value of this just-him-and-Jack vacation. 

Jack surprised Ennis and wanted to detour over to the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, like they were tourists. The bridge spanned a deep gorge that went down and down. Once they got out of the truck and walked along the pavement, there was a sign saying no jumping. That sign spooked Ennis, no lie, since it made clear some folks had jumped, and then he got spooked again when they stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked down to the river far below. He wasn’t afraid of heights, never had been, but there was something worrisome about human beings thinking they could go over nature like this. The river was stronger than anything man-made. It’d cut this gorge, after all.

A couple of families were there; two boys got to chasing each other along the sidewalk, playing like they were going to push each other over the edge. Their mom called them back to her. 

“Kids shouldn’t pretend like that,” Ennis noted. “Dying’s serious business.”

He shouldn’t of said that. Jack, next to him as they leaned on the rail, went still. Ennis cursed himself, cause he was probably thinking of Lureen. They didn’t know anybody else who’d died recently except her. 

“Come on,” he told Jack. “We don’t need to stay here. Let’s get back.” 

Jack held out his hand for the keys. “I’m driving.” 

Ennis didn’t object.

The bridge wasn’t all that far from Taos, where they got caught in a Sunday afternoon traffic jam that aggravated the piss out of Jack. It took forever to crawl through the center of town, along the only route to highway 68. When they got up to the festival at the city park that was the cause of the commotion, Jack thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel and said, “Jesus Christ.” He’d been doing the finger thrumming for a while now. 

“You want to stop up here at the Adobe Bar and get a drink?” Ennis asked. 

“No,” Jack shot back. “I want to leave all these Sunday drivers in our dust.”

Through Taos and then finally onto the highway to Angel Fire. Through that and then around Eagle Nest Lake, past their own town and past county road 19. “We’re not five minutes from home,” Ennis remarked. “Ain’t that strange.”

When they finally pulled up in front of the cabin, it lacked only an hour to sunset, though the sun was covered by rain-looking clouds, banks of them coming in from the west. They’d been gone a long time for just lunch. 

Jack turned the key, the engine faded, and he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“You got a headache?” Ennis asked.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Come on inside and put your feet up. Maybe there’s something good on TV.”

Ennis did his best not to show he’d stiffened during the hours in the truck, but he limped up the steps to the porch despite his efforts. Jack let him be, and he was grateful. 

“Might be nice to sit out here and watch the storm come in,” Jack commented. He eyed the porch swing that was slowly moving in the breeze whistling through the valley. 

“Thought you were swearing off storms.” 

“That’s so.”

“So let’s go in where neither one of us will get wet.”

Sunday afternoon TV on the only channel they got offered nothing better than a show about dogs and how close they were to wolves, which didn’t interest Ennis a lick, but it would serve. He put the sound on low and sat on the sofa next to Jack, though at the other end, leaving some space between them. He had a plan. 

“Come on, put ‘em up here,” he said, gesturing toward his lap. “It’s your turn.”

That pulled a smile from his grumpy man. “Ennis, it’s my head that hurts, not my feet.”

“You see how long that lasts once I get started with you.”

Jack’s feet were a bit sweaty and stinky once he got the shoes and socks off, but he didn’t let that stop him. Ennis supposed his on Friday night had been the same, but Jack had gone on with the foot rubbing. He did too, and he knew Jack liked it. He made a couple sounds of pleasure that sort of got to Ennis; they sounded like sex noises. They set up a tingle in his chest but more important down below. Not getting hard, more of a knowing that his dick was there, and that it had a purpose. Ennis tried not to concentrate on it, partly cause to pay attention might stop it, but mainly cause this was Jack’s time to get from him. He had a feeling that since he’d come home from the hospital he’d had his head up his own ass. It was time to start looking around at other stuff besides what was going on with him. Mostly Jack. 

Jack. Who looked like a porn-mag angel right now, stretched out like he was enjoying every second of what Ennis was doing to his toes. There was some real relaxing going on, his shoulders getting lower, his head leaning further back against the end cushion, one arm curved over his head. His eyes were mainly closed, his mouth open a bit, and Ennis could see the hint of his pink tongue. Damn. If he took Jack’s picture and sent it into the _Stallion_ magazine, it’d get published no question. He’d make certain it was printed in color. The only thing better would be if Jack was naked. Now that would be a shot.

Jack made a sound his mother would be shocked at. Ennis smirked to himself.

“Your headache better?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jack’s head rolled from side to side.

The TV was going on about re-introducing wolves into the wild deliberately, such a dumb idea, so Ennis tuned that out and concentrated on some deep foot massage, digging his fingers into Jack’s arch. 

Jack groaned again and stretched full out along the sofa, raising both arms up into the air. Ennis had to reach to keep the foot in his hands as the toes pointed. Jack said, “Goddamn, you’re an expert at this.”

“Not me,” Ennis said. “Bill’s the expert. Here, put your feet back.”

Jack’s eyes popped open, his arms came down, and he lifted his head some. “Bill’s done this for you?”

Ennis hadn’t meant to say that, but once said, he couldn’t take it back. Besides, there wasn’t any need to hide it now that Jack knew about Bill and had met him. He nodded like it was ordinary. “Massage is part of the therapy. He started out with my feet one day and then moved up my legs. It’s helped get rid of the bruising. He does it every session now.”

Jack used a few seconds to take that in. “That’s why the shorts.”

“I guess. Mainly.”

“Well, damn.” Jack’s head fell back against the end cushion. 

“You know it don’t mean a thing.” 

Funny how Ennis could say that now without worrying, either about himself or Jack. The dream had bothered him, but now, after the weekend with Jack, he not only remembered but had proved to himself how him and Jack fit together. Even without them getting the lovemaking back yet, there wasn’t anybody else for him but Jack. Funny, and scary too, how that had got lost in his recovering-time. 

Jack nudged him with one foot, bringing Ennis back from his thinking. “I already told you, I’m not worried about you and Bill.”

“Good.”

“You gonna keep rubbing my feet?”

“Why, you want me to stop?”

“Hell, no. I’ll tell you tomorrow when to stop.”

Ennis huffed a laugh and got back to his job. The TV droned on in the background.

“I wish we didn’t have to leave tomorrow,” Jack said like it was an impossible dream that he wanted anyway. 

“Me too.”

“It’s been a real fine weekend, but it’s not the real world, is it?”

“No,” Ennis said, slow, “we can’t live here.”

“And we can’t shut out the rest of the world and make it just you and me.”

“We tried to do that for sixteen years.” 

“These last couple days have reminded me of all the good parts of that, when we met up.”

“No working,” Ennis put in.

“Especially not working.”

“You sure don’t want to go back to the feedlot, do you?”

Jack made a face. “Don’t remind me. I’ve had enough of that today already.”

“My mama told me once or twice about some place far off where it was Sunday all week long.”

“Ugh. Going to church every day?”

Ennis abandoned Jack’s feet and thought for a couple seconds. He’d been so little, but he remembered the feeling of sitting on his mama’s lap, her arms warm around him. He’d been crying ‘bout something or other, something that’d seemed mean and wrong, like the world hadn’t gone the way little-guy-Ennis thought it should. 

He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t talking ‘bout going to church. Maybe it was Saturday she meant. The thing is, it was the best thing to live there. The law of the land was that everybody had enough to eat and nobody had to work.” 

“Tell me where that is and I’ll go there.”

He hadn’t thought about this old tale in many a year, but some of it was coming back to him. His mama had dried his tears by telling this story. “The rains only came at nighttime, and there was magic in all the refrigerators so when you opened them up, they were full of food. Lots of cake and candy. Kids didn’t have chores and got to play all day.”

“Your mama sure had the imagination.” 

Ennis nodded. He liked remembering her like that, when her eyes had sparkled and her voice had gone up and down, almost like singing, as she tucked him in at night. “That she did.”

“I think you got your tall-tale-telling from her.” 

Ennis took Jack’s toes and shook them. “I don’t go telling tales.”

Jack scoffed. “Oh, sure you don’t. Angels bowling up in heaven? Stars talking? You got a lot going on up in that head that other folks don’t.”

“I don’t -- ”

“It’s okay, I like it.” Jack pulled his feet back and sat up. He looked out toward the fireplace, empty for now of flames, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I like it so much that I’ve got a tale for you. That same place you told of? Everybody who finds it, all their troubles disappear. Nobody’s afraid of anybody, cause they’re all good people.”

Ennis reached out and slid his palm down Jack’s back and kept it there. “So I’m not worried about folks looking at us cross-wise there?”

Jack looked back over his shoulder at Ennis, and the look on his face about broke Ennis’s heart. “Yeah. You’re not worried. Cause it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.”

“Jack, I wish I could get that world for you.”

Jack stood up, but then he leaned down toward Ennis and took his face between both hands. Ennis blinked up at him. He thought Jack was gonna say something important. He could see it in those blue eyes, that something was struggling to come out. But it didn’t. Instead Jack let him go and walked away. 

“I’m gonna take a bath,” he said. 

Ennis was left alone, wondering. 

*****

_What the hell was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? How could he stay on this mountain with Jack, after what they’d done last night?_

_Ennis ran a hand over his face. Jack, on the other side of the fire, looked up at him and then down at his feet again. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Neither one of them had come out with a word since Ennis had trailed Jack into camp, come down from the high places where he’d said “You know I ain’t queer,” and Jack had agreed with him. “Me neither.”_

_But that wasn’t enough. Down here at camp, where the damn tent was, there was no way to back up those words. The real truth with its canvas flap pushed back was right there. He could see the blankets and bedroll where they’d done it._

_Ennis swallowed and could hardly get his spit down past the rock in his throat. How had that happened? Impossible. How could he make sure it didn’t happen again? Impossible._

_Jack got up and threw the remains of his coffee on the ground. When he said, “I’m headed for the tent,” his words were like shotgun pellets that lodged in Ennis’s chest, ping ping ping sting, can’t breathe, can’t think, can only remember skin against skin, his dick on fire, in that hole so tight, Jack pounding the ground, the long slide down from the top to comfort to sleep ...._

_He didn’t remember enough. He wanted to remember. Needed to. How’d it happen, at the start? Jack had ... yeah. A hand on his dick. Jesus Christ. Nobody had ever touched his dick, though he’d .... No, he’d never thought of it. Dreamed it once or twice, but .... Waking dreams. Some phantom man he’d never thought would have a face._

_Jack’s face. Jack’s hands. Those long fingers of his. Jack throwing his head back singing his mama’s old hymns, Jack grunting out his coming. Jack who’d asked if Ennis’s brother and sister had done right by him. Nobody else had ever given two damns about .... Jack who looked at him._

_Such a rotten, fucking shame that this mountain-time had been spoiled. It’d been the best .... Not since his mama and daddy took that curve had Ennis felt .... But stupid to think of Brokeback Mountain as a home. Just cause Jack was here. Jack with his eyes like a girl and a dick like his own and a mouth on him that kept going. That mouth._

_What would it feel like to ...._

_He knew nothing. Couldn’t even remember half of what went on last night. Maybe they’d ... done it. Kissed. He didn’t think so. But maybe._

_Jack was moving around in there, he could see it. His shirt was off._

_What was he gonna do?_

*****

Ennis turned off the babbling TV and went to wash his hands at the sink. He could hear the gentle rumble of far-off thunder; the clouds that had followed them from Taos were bringing rain with them, like Jack had said. But he couldn’t see outside. He stared at nothing but wall since there wasn’t a window here at the sink like at their house. The window at home let sights in. The wall here was a hard dividing line between inside and outside. He liked the window better. 

Ennis shook his head at his foolishness, but he was unsettled after that talk with Jack, with whatever it was that Jack hadn’t said. He turned away from the water, at a loss as to what to do, with Jack in the bathroom for a while. The bed looked mighty inviting. 

He settled himself with his hands folded over his stomach and didn’t even fight how his eyes wanted to close. The sound of the water running into the tub, the softer sounds of Jack taking off his clothes, and then the rumble of the Jacuzzi jets merged with the first drops of rain falling on their roof. No outdoor grilling for them tonight, he thought, as he slipped off to sleep. 

Dreams didn’t come to him, unless he counted the feeling that he was floating in the ocean, no land in sight, the gentle swell of the water moving him back and forth, back and forth. No troubles, like they’d been talking of. He halfway opened his eyes a couple times, enough to think it was traveling in the truck for more’n three hours that had given him this floaty feeling, or maybe the porch swing rocking, but there was no reason to fight it. 

He came back to life slowly, no big rush, the watery sounds of rain alongside him as he drifted up from the peace of sleep. 

For a while he lay there, listening. He remembered the lightning storm real well now, the wild rush of the wind and how cold the drops falling had been, hitting his face and hands like stabbing ice. What they had now from the clouds was the other end of the way things might be, soft and gentle, a good thing for the earth. Two different storms, almost like how people were so different. 

The gurgling water draining from the tub told him Jack would be out of the bathroom soon. He kept his eyes closed and sent his mind there with Jack, watching him climb out of the tub, his balls all relaxed and hanging, his dick looking so fine in its nest of hair. Drops of water would be sparkling on his chest and dripping down into his face from his hair. 

Jack was probably swiping himself down with the towel now. Down his arms to those hands Ennis liked real well, that he’d bought Jack gloves for, to protect them. 

He moved his legs against the sheet, restless, and then went still. Jack would be clean all over. Fit for licking all over. Fit for ....

The bathroom door opened. He heard Jack come out and then pause. Ennis held his breath. Suddenly, every part of him was tuned across the room, listening for every movement, imagining what Jack was thinking. Wanting him to .... Wanting. 

Was it ... was it happening at last, for real, full blown? A stirring from deep inside him, wanting Jack, all ways. But especially that way. Jack in bed for lovemaking with him. For sex. His dick in the right place, Jack’s hand or mouth or ass, working like it was meant to.

Footsteps. Jack came over to his own side of the bed. But there wasn’t any dip to the mattress proving he was getting in next to Ennis. Jack wasn’t next to him. Ennis slitted his eyes open.

Jack was bent over his bag on the floor; Ennis took a quick, hard gulp of air, cause he needed it. Jack looked better than his imagination. He was barefoot. And bare-chested. His jeans hung low on his hips, showing the top of his ass crack. Ennis had never seen a better sight in his whole life.

Ennis rolled over cause he had to get closer, and Jack noticed. He stood up straight and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up. You need your sleep.” 

“No, I don’t,” Ennis said. “I need you.” He reached across the mattress, a little scared -- a lot scared -- but he wasn’t gonna let that stop him when Jack with wet hair and his nipples drawn up tight had got his dick interested. He curled his fingers. “Come here, Jack.”

“Oh,” Jack breathed, and then in a rush he took two giant steps over to the bed, so that his knees knocked against it. He stopped there, holding a black t-shirt against his chest as if it was a shield, and looked down at Ennis with all sorts of confusion on his face. “But I promised you.”

“I ain’t making promises this time, but at least I can do for you.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m through with the one-sided way we’ve been making love.” 

Ennis hesitated. He wanted to try -- if he didn’t try, he’d never know -- but suppose he opened himself up in front of Jack like this and couldn’t do it? Made a fool of himself? 

Ah, hell. Since they’d had their talk in the stable, Jack knew all his truth. Ennis trusted him to care for it, that good-looking sonuvabitch. 

Ennis rolled onto his back, lifted up, and unzipped his pants. He worked those and his shorts down over his hips, knowing what Jack was seeing, his dick raised up a ways, him half-hard.

He kicked his clothes away and let his fingers touch what he felt in his gut. Desire. Desire that’d been hidden in his body behind his leg pain and every kind of worry. When his fingertips skimmed over his dick -- oh, God, felt so good -- his hardness didn’t disappear. It was still there, and growing. He choked on how that made him feel, the hopelessness disappearing and the best feeling in the world rising up in its place. It was still there. Goddamn, he _wasn’t_ a bedroom cripple. 

To prove it to himself, Ennis circled his thumb and forefinger around the head of his dick and rubbed, pulling his foreskin up and then pushing it back a ways. And then again. Again, feeling the skin get loose, going further down, exposing his dick for what it was meant to do. Oh, God. Oh, God, yes. Fuck, he remembered this sizzling, this heat, nothing else like it. It wasn’t just him that had been sleeping and had now woke up. His dick pulsed against his hand, awake now from its deep sleep. There wasn’t anything in the whole, goddamn world better than this.

“Won’t be so one-sided,” he gasped. 

“Holy shit,” Jack said like it was something church-like, and he fell to his knees on the floor, clutching the edge of the mattress. 

Ennis kept moving his hand, not exactly jerking off with intent, but touching, urging himself on. It was all flooding back to him, how easy it was, like walking, but hey, he knew how to walk like a champ now, and this was better than easy, this was familiar and above all natural, and Jack right there was gonna make it even better. 

Jack was staring at Ennis’s dick like it held the answers to all Floyd’s unanswerable questions. The way Ennis felt, that was about right. “You like this?” Ennis asked, his voice all hoarse. 

Jack licked his lips. “I gotta get a taste of that. How about we throw our promise out the window?” 

“Suits me.” Ennis let go of his dick -- didn’t want to, but even more important than his dick was getting Jack close to his dick -- and reached out to grab Jack under both arms. 

He hauled Jack over him about the same time Jack threw himself on top, and then he wrapped his arms around Jack, wrapped his legs around him too, pulling him in tight and close. Rocked against Jack. His dick pressed against cloth, those blue jeans, but that was still better than anything life had handed him for weeks. He could feel Jack’s bulge against him, rising. 

“I missed you,” he said, his words muffled against Jack’s bare shoulder. Christ, he’d missed Jack. Jack’d been right there, but not there at all. 

Jack squeezed him, pulled back, and sought his lips. “Me too,” he mumbled as he took Ennis’s mouth. 

New and old at the same time, their tongues taking up the dance, started on that second night they’d spent together in the tent, when all Ennis’s deepest yearnings had been fulfilled, Jack pulling him down, holding him in a man’s strong arms, and Ennis hardly believing it could be that easy, simply surrendering. Their old dance was being made new again this day, a second chance at what Ennis had feared would never be again, and damn but Jack was a great kisser, and damn but his whole body flushed hot with how much his dick wanted, how much he wanted, closer and closer, moaning as Jack pushed against him, as he pushed against Jack, as they rolled over, Ennis on top now, his dick so hard it popped up against his stomach. 

“Gotta get our clothes off,” he panted, looking down at Jack, bare at the top, at himself, bare at the bottom. “Got to get ourselves matched.” 

Jack surged up and about ripped the shirt off over Ennis’s head and then attacked his own zipper like it was an enemy. Ennis edged back until he was kneeling over Jack’s ankles, his knees spread wide. There was the hint of a burn in his thigh, but he paid it no heed as Jack pulled his legs up and ripped off his jeans, flinging them against the wall where they fell down into his open bag. 

Ennis looked down at Jack’s dick, and his mouth flooded with how much he wanted it in his mouth. In his hand. In his ass. He wanted to fuck, and be fucked, and do everything else all at the same time. But he needed to do it right now, this instant, cause he’d waited long enough. So mouth it was gonna be, the warm, wet glide of Jack’s tongue against his hardness. He got dizzy at the thought and swayed on his knees. If he didn’t get those red-red lips on him, sucking the way he knew Jack could suck, his pounding heart was gonna explode in a million pieces. 

He threw himself down on the bed next to Jack, flipped over to his back, and looked down at himself. Jesus, his dick was standing straight and proud, as good as new, like it was shouting _check me out!_ He held the base of it so Jack couldn’t mistake what he was offering. 

Jack made a whooping sound and went down on Ennis like he meant it. 

Ennis couldn’t stop himself from moaning when there was that first lick at the top over his piss slit, followed by a long wet swiping down and then up, and then he moaned so loud he could’ve drowned out a jet engine when Jack’s lips surrounded him. He let go of where he was holding himself, feeling Jack’s fingers there instead, pushing him off, and then he let his arms collapse, spread wide, clutching at the sheet to keep himself from flying off into the sky. 

“JesusFuckingChrist,” he gasped. 

He was forty years old, not on a hair trigger anymore, but seemed his body’d forgot that, cause this was gonna happen fast. He didn’t fight it as there was no way, and besides, he wanted it more than he’d hardly wanted anything else, except Jack. 

“Gettin’ close,” he grated out, feeling the beginning of that climb all the way up, was gonna blast off soon, had to reach back down and grab Jack’s head, hair through his fingers, Jack and him back together again. 

Jack hummed around him, and that was more’n enough. Ennis gave himself up to his coming. He arched up -- “Ahhh! Ahhh!” -- and damn near jackknifed, jerking up as come exploded out of his dick, like fire pouring out of him and down Jack’s throat with one thrust, the best feeling ever, so strong the good almost hurt, and two thrusts, Jack’s fingers came around to his balls and stroked, a million dollars couldn’t buy that feeling, and three and four thrusts, usually done by now but Ennis had so much built up that had been kept back, and he didn’t pull back but jerked up into Jack’s mouth again, and five and even some part of a six until his dick was done and he fell back against the bed again, a new-made man.

A new-made man. Ennis grinned up at the ceiling, panting like he’d run twenty miles, but feeling so big inside. Anything seemed possible now. Guess him trusting Jack when he hadn’t been sure he could do this had been a real good decision.

Jack was smothering his dick with kisses, all over it, off to the side and up to his hip too, seemed like such a Jack-like thing for him to do, a sort of celebration to match the fireworks going off in Ennis’s chest, but when Jack went back to his center, he was too sensitive to take it.

“Hey,” Ennis said, wriggling some, “no more.”

Jack popped up, crawled over Ennis on all fours, and looked down at him with what had to be a world-record smile for happiness. Ennis grinned back at him, but nobody could smile the same as Jack Twist.

“Yee-hah!” Jack crowed so loud. “You did it!”

“Yep.” He reached up and swiped his thumb over Jack’s cheek. “Guess I did.”

“I knew you would.” Jack dropped all his weight on him, Ennis let out a _whoof!_ and then he gave himself over to being kissed by and kissing the man whose patience and promises had brought him back to himself. 

“Never wanna be without you,” he murmured suddenly, cause it was true. 

Then, louder, “You hear me?” He tightened his grip on Jack’s arms and rolled them both over, so Jack was under him, still smiling fit to break his lips as he grinned up at Ennis. “You hear what I said?” Ennis asked him, fierce; this was important. “I never wanna be without you, so you make sure that doesn’t happen.” 

Jack put his finger on Ennis’s lips, he kissed it, and then Jack’s smile disappeared. “It’s the two of us, together,” Jack said, like he was swearing in a court. “Nobody else. No matter what.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Ennis nodded, serious as he could be. “And now .... ” He gave a small thrust. His own dick had done its job and was headed for some deserved sleepy time, but Jack’s was pushing up against him, making its presence known. “Time for me to get a mouthful.” 

He slid down Jack’s body and set out to give him the best thank-you blow job ever in the history of the United States. 

Later that night, after they’d pulled the grill up onto the covered back porch and grilled burgers there while the rain poured down, and after they’d watched another basketball game while sitting on the sofa so close pressed that not even a paper could be fit between them -- “It’s not cuddling unless I say it’s cuddling,” Ennis stated -- and after they’d packed everything up and set the cabin to order, cause they’d need to leave when the morning was still dark, in order to get Jack to work in time, they went to bed and made love. 

Ennis needed to prove to himself he could do it again, and Jack said that he hadn’t been fucked in ages and really missed Ennis doing that for him. “Think your leg would be up to that?”

If he’d had any questions about his dick getting back into action, that did it for Ennis, since nothing could have stopped him from doing exactly what Jack wanted. 

It was like a dream, only better. Sliding into Jack that night was more than the ease of the lube that Jack had packed “just in case.” And more than Jack clutching at him or Ennis going slow, not wanting to hurt, even more wanting to draw it out. It was this moment, every second special cause of how he’d almost lost it, and it was every breath that begged to be counted. It was the wonder of him and Jack together, the two of them who shouldn’t be, but who were. 

Ennis put weight on his arms, thrust in and pulled halfway out, heard Jack groan out his pleasure, and wished they could kiss while they fucked like this. But they’d kissed already and would kiss again. This time was so big, him in Jack. It held everything. It held those times when’d they’d been drunk and when they’d been mad and when they’d been worried they were falling apart and this might be the last time ever. It held those times when they felt in their hearts words that they’d never say, except they finally had said them, words like I need you and I want you and don’t you know I love you? I love you. 

Who was he thinking this to? Jack couldn’t hear into his head. It didn’t matter. _Thank you for this. Thank you, bud._

Before they left the cabin, Ennis stood on the front porch as the early-morning cold seeped in under his jacket. When Jack turned from locking the door, he grabbed Jack’s hand. Jack laughed out loud for no reason he could tell, but Ennis was filled with good feeling, so he didn’t tell Jack to shush. 

“Mr. Bright Eyes,” he said instead, true even in this time before dawn, when the stars still showed in the sky. 

Jack came up against him and gave Ennis a peck on the lips, that were feeling a mite sore, having been pressed into action so much the last twelve hours. “Honeybunch,” Jack called him, all fond-like.

“Hey now,” Ennis said. “None of that. We better go.”

“Home for you,” Jack sighed and released him. “But straight back to work for me.” 

Ennis wished he could take away some of the stress from Jack’s voice. “Everything gonna be okay between you and that Perez guy?” he asked as Jack walked across the porch. “He didn’t say anything so we should worry about you losing that job, did he?”

Jack was holding on to the rail now, on the top step, ready to go back down to the earth. He shook his head, looked up at the sky, and then down to where the truck was waiting for them. “No, Ennis, you got nothing to worry about. I’ll work it out with James. It’ll be all right.” 

Ennis came up next to him. “You sure?” he asked, peering at Jack through the dimness. 

But Jack wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’ll be all right. Come on, let’s go. I can’t afford to be late.”

THE END  
of  
Force of Nature: Storm,  
the second novel in the  
Force of Nature Trilogy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DEDICATION
> 
> To the readers who left comments, sent emails, or provided kudos  
> over the past year as I posted   
> Force of Nature: Storm --   
> Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support and encouragement 


End file.
